give & take
Elizabeth Shavrick
How can we find a sustainable balance within a creator’s urge to create? Waste is an outcome in almost everything we make. We can see waste from the materials we use and how they reached us, and we can even see waste in the potential reality that the projects we worked so hard to produce may end up stacked away, collecting dust.
This project poses an alternative solution to this inevitable problem by creating a system called give & take, built on a basis of exchange and education.
give & take facilitates spaces that house the cyclical exchange of existing and in-progress artworks, creating a new mode of recycling specifically for the creative community. These spaces not only promote conscious making, but foster the flow of ideas, inspiration, colors, materials, words and collaborations.
give & take’s spaces of recirculation include pop ups, events, and the launch of a local artwork recycling closet in Williamsburg: a self-sustaining, accessible and more independent mode of exchange similar to the community fridge model.
give & take also houses a digital space promoting sustainable material education and guidance, while consciously navigating the means of building a low-tech website and sustainable advertising through the use of thoughtful colors, accessible type and file sizes.
The framework of give & take’s visual and digital assets is a system designed to be easily implemented in other creative communities.
While waste is an outcome in almost everything we make, give & take guides us to a more conscious solution.