RAIR: Live at the Dump

RAIR (Recycled Artist in Residency) presented an interactive, site-specific program that utilized a series of films, performances, and discussions to increase public awareness of the waste stream and the role of art in shaping social and environmental consciousness. For the first time, RAIR hosted this programming at its location within Revolution Recovery, a Northeast Philadelphia recycling center. Modeled after the experience of a RAIR artist-in-residence, Live at the Dump moved from an exploration phase, featuring the screening of films on post-industrial society, to an immersion phase, with interdisciplinary performances and interpretive tours, to reflection, with the transformation of the recycling center's dumping area into a lounge and cinema environment. Live at the Dump offered audiences a look into the reality of post-consumer processing and questioned how the creative process may feed it. For the workers at Revolution Recovery, the project provided exposure to the creative work happening at RAIR and a new perspective on their labor.