Trash Trout Picture Show
December 8, 2022 – February, 4, 2023 | Alexander Community Gallery
Tom Hansell, Plastic Confluence #3, 2022, plastic shopping bags and barrel hoop salvaged from the river. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Filmmaker and visual artist Tom Hansell, in collaboration with local river protectors, has spent the last two years salvaging river trash and creating works of art from the refuse collected. His work with The Watauga Riverkeeper, an essential protector of the Watauga River Watershed, began with the collection of plastic bags and other detritus from a passive stormwater debris collector nicknamed the Trash Trout and culminated in a series of participatory workshops: more than fifty local residents taped trash from the river to 16mm film strips. Similarly, Hansell worked with the New River Conservancy on river cleanups, then turned reclaimed plastic bags into sculptures.
The resulting film and sculptural works will be displayed alongside images documenting microplastic pollution in local waterways in BRAHM's Alexander Community Gallery from December 8, 2022 to February 4, 2023. In January, BRAHM will host a performance of the Trash Trout Motion Picture Show featuring local musicians and dancers, Trevor McKenzie and Julie Shepherd-Powell, who will perform a live soundtrack as the film is projected.
Tom Hansell in collaboration with participants from workshops sponsored by the Watauga Riverkeeper and the New River Conservancy, still from the Trash Trout Motion Picture Show film, 2022, 16mm motion picture film and plastic refuse. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Tom Hansell in collaboration with participants from workshops sponsored by the Watauga Riverkeeper and the New River Conservancy, Film Vines, 2022, beaver sticks, bailing twine, and 16mm motion picture film strips. Photo courtesy of the artist.