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Movements turn ‘campaign waste’ into clothing, accessories
Fashion statement: Not letting a campaign banner go to waste, a resident of Central Java has transformed it into a raincoat
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ashion statement: Not letting a campaign banner go to waste, a resident of Central Java has transformed it into a raincoat. Upcycling campaign materials for new uses has been promoted across the country since the general election ended.(photo by @amildamii38 via instagram @lindaruslianam)
As the campaign period for the 2019 general election ended on April 14 and city officials took down campaign materials worth billions of rupiah around the city, one question arose: What would happen to this waste?
The General Elections Commission (KPU) had distributed Rp 400 billion (US$28.3 million) alone to subsidize the campaign materials of legislative candidates.
Since the Jakarta administration and the government had yet to come up with specific measures to manage the discarded campaign materials, some have stepped up to upcycle the “campaign waste” into salable products.
Among these is Harits “Tejyet” Alfadri Dewanto, a young artist who studied visual communication design in 2012.
A picture of a woman wearing one of his first creations – a jacket crafted from political party flags – went viral. He cut out the parties’ logos and sewed them together into a colorful jacket.
“I thought that the campaign flags, banners and billboards we saw in public spaces during the campaign period were just too much,” Tejyet told The Jakarta Post, calling the materials “visual waste”.
“The most challenging part was to incorporate the party logos into a unique motif that is pleasing to the eye that could trigger people’s [imagination] on seeing it. I hope for interaction between people and my creations,” he said.
By Tuesday, Tejyet had collected 50 banners and two billboards with the help of some friends, and stored them at his studio in Cililitan, East Jakarta.
“My main goal is to hold an exhibition,” said Tejyet.
He added that he was looking forward to collaborating with others who shared his feelings toward the campaign waste. He was open to other creative techniques and approaches to upcycling the waste to make the project more interesting, like tie-dyeing, indigo dye and neon flex lighting.
“Aside from jackets, I will also make trousers, hats, bags and other ‘out of the box’ ideas that are aesthetic and functional,” he said.
Tejyet also expressed a wish to work with people skilled in installation art for the exhibition, which he planned to hold in Jakarta at the end of May. He said that afterwards, he might sell or auction the exhibition pieces.
In the neighboring city of Bandung, West Java, the Parongpong waste management company also embarked on a similar project called “The Trash Bag Project”, inviting the public to collect campaign banners that it would turn into trash bags.
“The principle behind the project is use discarded banners, so that we don’t need to use raw materials or new banners in making trash bags,” Parongpong founder Rendy Aditya Wachid said as quoted by kompas.com on April 15.
Rendy added that Parongpong wanted to prevent the campaign waste from ending up in landfill. Every piece of campaign material that was still in good condition, without tears or holes, could be upcycled into trash bags.
The Trash Bag Project is to be launched on April 27 at the Happiness Festival in Lapangan Banteng, Central Jakarta.
In Central Java, Governor Ganjar Pranowo held a competition that challenged local residents to recycle campaign waste into salable products, offering a combined cash prize of Rp 20 million for 10 winners.
Participants can join the competition by posting a photograph of the product or products they made from campaign waste to Instagram and tag the governor’s account, @ganjar_pranowo.
A user using the @lindaruslianam handle created a raincoat from a Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin campaign banner, carefully cutting out the candidates’ faces for the front panels.
Another user, @kalinda_zar, made a handbag, an umbrella and a child’s dress from legislative election banners.
Other creations include a backpack, a sling bag, a pair of sandals and a vest.
Ganjar announced on the Central Java Communication and Information Agency’s official Twitter account that the deadline for the competition had been extended to April 29.
