How To Hack Your Trash aka Instant Puppets

26 April sees Chris Pirie from Green Ginger present the day long version of his Trash Hack workshop. For those of you scratching your head over the concept of rummaging in the bin to create a puppet, think animated up-cycling. This is what Chris has to say about it:

What is a Trash Hack?

Trash Hack re-purposes domestic and industrial junk to create fantastical instant creatures. We then pull them apart to build another.

Do you have a favourite Trash Hack Creature?

“Not really. I really enjoy the energy and the creativity that is sparked by the fast pace of decision making, the creatures are always surprising. I bring a huge collection of junk that I know really well to the sessions. Every time I think that all the possibilities have been exhausted, someone comes up with something new. A recent discovery was a part of an espresso coffee maker: it usually becomes a head, but someone used it to create the locomotion for their creature, I had never seen that before and it worked really well.”

What if someone can’t make it to the workshop on 26 April – how do they do a trash hack for themselves?

“Grab an object, anything that appeals. Really explore the object, get a sense of its texture, what noises it makes, what movements does it have.

See how the object walks along the floor and gets up onto a tabletop. Grab another object, explore how it works with the first object to make limbs and create a torso.

You can use some instant fixings such as gaffa tape, sellotape, rubber bands etc to join the objects together to create a new creature – anything that you can reverse, deconstruction is as important as construction.

Find out how this creature walks, how it talks to other creatures. Dare to fail, make mistakes, go up blind alleys. You can do it on your own, but it’s definitely more fun with friends. There is no right or wrong, just have a go!”

Trash Hack with Chris Pirie

26 April 10am-5pm  The Elephant Room, Dean Lane Bristol

To book click here or call 0117 929 3593