Our warehouse is filled with an ever-changing inventory of reusable material saved from Philadelphia’s creative industries. In conjunction with DesignPhiladelphia, we’re challenging you to generate new works from these previously wasted resources. Prizes will be given for the best submissions! Bonus points for project examples [pictures/links] from your own life or from your favorite artists and makers!
friday, october 12th — industry: visual arts — material: art slides
Photographic slides, or transparencies, are used for projection and archival purposes to share and document art. Each individual slide is made from an exposed section of photographic film, housed in a plastic frame which protects the film and makes it suitable for use in slide projectors. Photographic film is a strip of plastic coated in an emulsion of salts and gelatin.
Photographic film, like other plastics, is made from petroleum. The surrounding casing of each slide is also petrochemical and non-biodegradable. The processing of the film involves many chemicals that are toxic to humans and the environment. The recovery of silver-bearing waste is often too costly for non-industrial quantities, and as a result, most slides/photographs/negatives/xrays are either sent to landfill or incinerated. These slides, formerly the art library archive of a local college, were used for many years before the archive was converted to digital formats, at which point all of the slides became waste.
Last night at our DesignPhiladelphia event, I made this candle holder from lauan and some slides. Leave a comment or email info at theresourceexchange dot org to submit your idea for how to reuse art slides!
