From Trash to Treasure: German students give new life to everyday rubbish as recycled art and design works

There's a good old saying that goes.One man's trash is another man's treasure. This was also the approach when teacher Dr Sven Pompe from the Aktiv-Schule Erfurt school in Germany reached out to Kulturprinsen and asked if we should come up with a fun and creative art and design project together for a group of their 6th grade students. Like many Danish children, the German students were also relegated to online learning from home due to the Corona situation.

The theme of the homeschool was "Materials", and the students had to learn about the nature of materiality and how to use common everyday materials in new and creative ways. This led to the project "From Trash To Treasure".

The students started by receiving some inspirational videos from Kulturprinsen with tips and ideas on how to approach recycled art. The students then collected everyday rubbish from home and transformed egg trays, milk cartons, cans and other packaging and leftovers into a whimsical and imaginative universe of monsters, robots, turtles, horses, collages, functional iPhone speakers and more.

Finally, the art and design works were displayed online and the cool students from Aktiv-Schule Erfurt received a special diploma from Kulturprinsen as a thank you for helping to highlight, in the words of painter Edgar Degas, that "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see".