TODAY’S
WASTE
TOMORROW’S
RAW MATERIAL

OnMaterials was initiated in December 2018. It started as a pilot project of the capacity program START – Create Cultural Change aiming at raising sustainability awareness in the artistic production and facilitating waste prevention through material redistribution and creative reuse.

The project wants to actively engage artists, designers, craftsmen, art institutions, schools and exhibition spaces to participate in this initiative and start working together on new strategies towards sustainable cultural practices.

Cultural events across the city of Athens are rarely interacting with leftover materials after the event closes: usually all the materials used for the installations and even the artworks, conclude their vital cycle by getting thrown away or stockpiled for years. We believe we deserve and need a better, smarter, more cyclical approach, in contrast to our linear “take-make-discard” relationship with materials. It is from this reality that the idea of re-using those materials for new artistic projects was born: an opportunity to rethink cultural practice in a more sustainable way and to demonstrate that alternative systems of production and consumption are possible. The great volume of waste can, therefore, become a resource, and we can all achieve to right planning the re-use of materials since the very early stages of the event productions.