The second edition of the Tilos Artist Residency concluded on October 31st, in Tilos, the first zero-waste island. This year, PCAI in collaboration with the British Council Greece invited RESOLVE Collective in the framework of the Circular Cultures (Making Matters) programme to participate in the innovative environmental artist residency. The programme aims to delve into the principles of the circular economy and its interconnection with creativity, collaboration, and regenerative thinking in architecture aw well as with design crafts, materials and urban design.
RESOLVE is an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges. During their stay on the island, the artists continued to be led by the interactions and conversations with the local community, conducted educational workshops and worked effectively with the island’s primary and secondary school children. Moreover, RESOLVE researched the circular economy programme implemented on the island and discovered more about its waste management and sorting system of the materials collected daily at the Tilos Centre for Circular Innovation. Furthermore, the British collective interviewed residents and professionals, organised open studio days, and created new works and art installations with recyclable materials together with young students. Additionaly, driven by their Tilos experience, they designed an original zine, as the footprint of their stay on the island. The culmination of the residency was the successful open event held on 29 October, which included talks and an exhibition of the residency works engaging children and residents in participatory work.
RESOLVE Collective notes on the educational workshops they implemented on the island: “Our workshop with the primary school in Tilos involved creative map-making through memory where the children drew the places that mean the most to them on the island in order to begin to uncover where resources are located and what value systems exist on the island. Our workshop with the secondary school repurposed materials collected from Tilos’ waste recycling facility, 3K, and we encouraged the students to think about how to use these materials to occupy public and underused spaces in Tilos”. Regarding the open event, the artists state: “The week concluded with a presentation to the local residents, parents, students, and friends of Tilos in the town square, and a temporary install of all the works co-created by the young people of Tilos throughout the week. An interactive emotional mapping workshop gathered the island’s residents, elders and key workers to trace their routes and relative key sites onto a large map to form a resource for understanding the many unique ways the community has adapted to make circularity a way of life here on Tilos. Reflecting upon the residency, we also intend to publish a printed zine informed and inspired by the community and workshops”.
The Tilos Artist Residency programme was organised in the context of Polygreen’s collaboration with the Municipality of Tilos. Polygreen’s Just Go Zero Tilos, an innovative environmental project, powered by Polygreen, was launched in 2022 on the island aiming to develop solutions that promote circular economy and sustainability, and made Tilos the first zero-waste island in Greece. The 2023 residency edition is supported by Onassis Stegi in the context of Circular Cultures (Making Matters).
More about RESOLVE Collective
Much of RESOLVE’s work aims to provide platforms for the production of new knowledge and ideas. An integral part of this way of working means designing with and for young people and under-represented groups in society. Here, ‘design’ encompasses both physical and systemic intervention, exploring ways of using a project’s site as a resource and working with different communities as stakeholders in the short and long-term management of projects. In this way, design carries more than aesthetic value; it is also a mechanism for political and socio-economic change.
RESOLVE’s project portfolio ranges from architecture/urban design projects to community support work, from artist installations to research publications. They have worked critically with numerous art institutions including S1 Gallery (Sheffield), Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt & SAAVY Contemporary (Berlin), Kunstverein Braunschweig (Braunschweig), Wellcome Collection, V&A Museum, The Barbican Centre, Tate Modern & Mosaic Rooms (London); a variety of public sector clients such as the London boroughs of Croydon, Ealing, and Greenwich; and other fellow community-focused organisations such as SADACCA (Sheffield), Skin Deep (London), MAIA (Birmingham), and Mansions of the Future (Lincoln). They also lead an undergraduate unit at the Architectural Association.
www.resolvecollective.com
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Activity aligned with Goals 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17
