Intermountain Sustainability Summit
March 18, 2021
Flash Session
Creative Reuse: a Catalyst for Change in a Throwaway Society
Presented by: Sophie Benson and Ian Aper, Clever Octopus.
Clever Octopus will begin with the close examination of an everyday object, walking through its history, its material makeup, its lifetime as “useful” through the lens of its marketed and sold purpose, and its possible future uses. This will segue into a brief history on the rise of “throwaway culture” and how it had to be taught - which means, of course, that it can be untaught. To this end, presenters will demonstrate creative reuse - not as an end-all solution to the crisis of hyper-consumption and pollution, but as a practice for reducing our impact, and more importantly, for unlearning. Seeing objects as their material content instead of their market use reveals what an abundance of resources we have available to us. As per Robin Wall Kimmerer, if we look at each material we use as the history of organisms and lives that created them, maybe we wouldn’t be so wasteful. If we can redefine how we use and reuse products that are meant to be thrown away to make room for a new purchase, then maybe we can redefine our relationship with the materials we use, the systems of energy we harness, and the organisms with which we share this world.
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