Urban Trash Transformation - Exhibition Opening

UZWEI, Dortmunder U

Thursday, Mar 6, 2025

Exhibition

Urban Arts

The Dortmunder U invites you to Urban Trash Transformation - an exhibition that combines upcycling and urban art. Over the past few months, they have been collecting, experimenting and designing to give seemingly worthless materials a new meaning.

Waste as a resource for art

In our society, many things are seen as waste, even though they offer creative possibilities. Upcycling creates new works of art from plastic, fabrics and old nets.

An important part of the project was the collection of plastic sheeting from graffiti workshops at local youth centres. This shows how urban art and graffiti can be combined on several levels: by reusing the material, retaining the graffiti context and processing it into new artistic forms. The original works were further developed, integrated into collages or reused in other variations.

Instead of disposing of the films, their potential was recognised: The dry paint began to flake off, creating random colour structures that were further processed as stylistic devices for collages. In this way, a new form of artistic expression emerged from a simple recycling approach.

In addition to the plastic films, the exhibition includes works from the fields of photography, film, motion design and the integration of workshop results.

Credits: Anne Brauer

A special element of the exhibition is the ‘Müllcity’ (waste city) - a self-built course for remote-controlled cars. Children and young people initially developed prototypes, which were then further elaborated.

A race track with an urban and industrial design was created from collected scrap and old components. Many materials were deliberately left in their original state in order to make their origins visible.

The exhibition is made possible by the support of regional partners who have contributed materials. These can be found not only in the ‘Müllcity’, but also in other installations in the exhibition.