An exhibit set to open at the UNB Art Centre in Fredericton is aiming to demonstrate the environmental threat of electronic waste.
The exhibit, called Heavy Metal, is an environmental awareness project in support of the UN initiative, World Water Day.
“The art centre has been part of world water day since 2001,” says Marie Maltais of the UNB Art Centre.
The centre has been collecting e-waste and recycling it into art.
“I think that is what this exhibition is trying to demonstrate, the quantity we have in our little corner of the world. So if you add all the others places all over the world with equal or more, you really get a picture of how much waste we generate,” says Maltais.
An issue the centre hopes to shine a light on.
“We are so used to having these products in our lives we forget that they come from natural resources, we have to mine the minerals like coltan and the rare earths, metals to produce these things, and we have to produce the plastic,” says Maltais.
When electronics are not discarded properly, there is a major impact on the environment.
While a big part of the Heavy Metal exhibit is to raise awareness, there is also an aspect of fun.
Art students from UNB, St. Thomas University, and the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design are turning tangled wires and long lines of telephones into something special.
“There's no right or wrong, it's just taking old stuff that was going to be thrown away and having fun with it,” says Lori Quick of the UNB Art Centre.
The exhibit begins Friday and runs until April 9.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Nick Moore
After its finished, all of the art will be recycled properly, or perhaps kept as its new creation.
