Four colorful dots in the middle of nature. If you look at the hiking trail along the Isar from a little distance this Sunday, you can see these spots – green, blue, pink, bright colors, anything but inconspicuous. Is that art or rubbish? Both one and the other. There are piles of rubbish on rucksacks. These rucksacks with art throws are carried by members of the Impact Revolution association. Shaped entirely from garbage, shapes of corals, animals, mushrooms appear on the throws. In addition: all kinds of references to nature.
But nothing is natural about these works of art. All such lovingly shaped bodies are made exclusively from plastic garbage. The group’s destination is Venice, they started a week ago at Munich’s Marienplatz. In forty days, 25 members of the association walk 557 kilometers for their Plastic Mountains project. “Like a relay race,” says Clara Bütow, 27, co-founder of the club. The members do not run the whole route, but split it up over different stages and then pass the costumes on to the next group. Some run one stage, some two, each of them doing as much as he can and in time. Because young people study and work, they only do Impact Revolution on the side.
But how does such an idea come about? It all started with a beer with co-founder Clara Stoll, says Clara Bütow. Both are enthusiastic mountain people and fantasized about simply hiking over the Alps from Munich. But it quickly became clear to them that they didn’t just want to do the whole thing for fun. They wanted to combine it with a mission. A club already existed and so they brought the idea to the table. “We came up with this topic relatively quickly because we compared the mountains of plastic with the mountains that have to be overcome. And the story emerged that we had to move plastic mountains,” says Clara Bütow.
The subject of the project is nothing new to her; she is currently studying Environmental Change and Management at Oxford. In addition, in 2018, before the association was even founded, she practiced art activism and combined it with a sporting challenge. She cycled a distance of 1500 kilometers and stopped in 15 cities, with a flamingo made out of garbage in tow. “I would like to bring the topic to the people,” says Clara Bütow.
Many people help together with their different areas of expertise
On the trip she saw how much such an action impressed people. How curious they were. It just helps to start a conversation and then they usually want to know more. “Art creates curiosity, especially in places where you don’t expect it, where it surprises you.” Then you have a foot in the door and can more easily address the topic behind this art. “I’m trying to create a version of how it could look different and how our life could work without us having to limit ourselves,” she says. It makes a big difference in capturing people with positive rather than negative images.
In spite of everything, there are of course small setbacks, and every now and then her worries get over her head. But “the only way to deal with it is to do something,” says Clara Bütow. No matter how you do it, the only important thing is that you do something.
She, too, went to a workshop without any prior knowledge and started to tinker the flamingo. “It is very much anchored in our club that we would rather try not to do things perfectly, but with the resources we have, rather than postpone them for years,” she says.
Clara Bütow (right) and Clara Stoll founded the Plastic Mountains project.
(Photo: Sabrina Ahm)
During the corona pandemic, the association grew significantly, because digital collaboration became more normal for everyone, especially in the voluntary sector. “It’s really great that it holds and wears like this – on many hands across many countries,” says Clara Bütow. “We are fortunate that we have many different people from different areas on the team who then help each other with their expertise”.
One of these experts is Johanna Alscheken, 26, a master tailor and costume designer. She studied fashion design and joined the new project to stand by the creative team and create one of the four costumes herself. It is anything but easy to work with plastic garbage and to collect the things you need, she says. “We didn’t go out and collected because it was pretty specific which types of garbage we needed. In the end, the costume shouldn’t fall apart in nature and redistribute the garbage,” says Johanna Alscheken. She told everyone who lived near her what she needed. “I told them: No yoghurt pots are thrown into the plastic waste anymore, I want every Hohes-C bottle and all of the bubble wrap you have.”
Then a mountain of rubbish lay at her feet in her studio and at first she had no idea how to get inspired by it. “Working with it is even more difficult because it is actually the enemy,” says Johanna Alscheken. The goal would have been to simply represent something organic. “In the end, it’s about people looking at it and understanding that it depicts something earthly. It doesn’t matter whether flowers or corals are seen there. Plastic sucks, whether in the water or in the meadow,” says Johanna Alscheken.
When she started working with the garbage and it got so intense that she sat there even at night, she realized how important the whole thing was to her. “I noticed that there was more.” She got into thinking. When you see how much plastic waste your own circle of friends produces alone, you get scared, she says. “This room is filled with garbage that is destroying our earth. It’s very emotional,” says Johanna Alscheken.
But the effort was worth it. Johanna Alscheken’s costume is on the way to Venice and looks great, despite or because of all the trash. At first the group is still big, because on the first day there are many supporters. It’s all the way to Wolfratshausen on the first day. They have planned some events along the way. Also in the end in Venice. Maybe they don’t move mountains, but they definitely won’t let you overlook.