during the pandemic, three cascadian trash puppeteers who were planning a tour together decided to upgrade their tour to garbage-fest, which became a bonanza of activities in five cities over two weeks, starting in bellingham, corvallis and portland, and ending in seattle and olympia. since then, the festival has traveled to bristol and london in the UK, new york city, new orleans, wellington and auckland new zealand, melbourne australia, yogyakarta indonesia, tokyo japan, montreal canada and puerto rico.
a typical garbage fest gathers in an abandoned place covered in rubbish. it includes workshops on building trash monuments to worship and destroy, carnival games like pin the garbage on the garbage and the trash toss, abject/animist puppetry construction & doing; costume assemblage with a trashion show or pageant, panels on the ontology and epistemology of trash; a bevy of deranged trashy avant-garde performances and rituals, often a night parade, and much more. each garbage fest is different and unique in its circumstance and unfolding, and anything can happen.
garbage fest is not about recycling, sustainability, or any of this cynical neoliberal nonsense. we worship trash and are trying to connect with it in a deep way.
you don't need much to put on a garbage fest. all you really need is trash. some props we have found especially helpful over the years include string, tape, shopping carts, chalk, paint, cardboard, plastic, long beams/poles, and especially community.
you can
purchase a copy of the second garbage fest book,
with submissions in eighteen languages from around the world,
published by aoteatoa's rebel press here: [LINK]
below are a few samples of works from garbagefests around the
world. so much more exists documented and not. i'll try to get
it uploaded soon!
SPONSORED TRASH, Corvallis, Cascadia
AMBER, Auckland Aotearroa
COMPILED DOCUREEL
GARBAGE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
what role does garbage play in your life?/you in its?
what is your most outrageous opinion about garbage, and how did
you arrive at it?
*do you have any visions about the future or past of trash?
do you see 'garbage' as a 'problem' in need of a 'solution'?
can trash be ascribed personhood, like water can? can garbage be
sentient or animate?
*how is humanity's current relationship to garbage historically
unique?
how is garbage related to the end of the world?
what are your (or anyone's) most ingenious ideas to do with
garbage? (even impossible ones)
*what "is" garbage? what is it not?
