Alchemy of Waste is a collective that seeks to redefine our perception of trash through collaborative, multimedia film projects. With a combined background in film, visual art, sustainability and waste management, founders Kamee Abrahamian and Katelyn Partlow call attention to our culture of consumption and waste by submitting their documentaries and films about upcycling to popular film festivals.
One of the films from their “All is Found” series was recently selected for the 2015 Planet in Focus International Film and Video festival for its candid documentation of a musician that rummages through closed-down schools looking for trash that he can upcycle into musical instruments. On their website, Abrahamian and Partlow write that they find inspiration from the “dumpster divers, tinkerers, and circuit hackers – those eccentric characters who are normally perceived as hoarders, but are in fact the underground pioneers of the upcycling movement.”
The second installation of the series called “Dangrrr Doll: All is Found,” is a collaboration with New York-based cabaret performer Dangrrr Doll and the Terracycle headquarters in New Jersey.
The founders try to spread the message of “a waste-not wonderland” by creating collaborative workshops, events, live performances, visual arts projects and films. From their perspective Alchemy of Waste is “an interactive, interdisciplinary approach to unveiling and deconstructing collective perceptions of waste.”
