Easton residents mock fly-tipping ‘artwork’

Easton is filling up with artists. And they’ve brought their sense of irony with them.

Easton Arts Trail launches this weekend, celebrating Bristol’s Green Capital year with a focus on waste and how to turn rubbish into art.

But for some, celebrating art’s relationship with rubbish in the area is nothing new.

For over a year now people have been taking pictures of typical Easton fly-tipping and posting them onto a Facebook page with sarcastic explainers of the “art installations”.

Get the Easton Look is a “visual archive of Easton aesthetic ephemera, particularly charming examples of guerrilla recycling and site specific community art installations using found objects,” according to its creator Nick Raistrick.

And since 2014, it has attracted more than 1,000 members who share pictures of fly-tipping from across the area with satirical art descriptions.

The rise of the group follows a similar growth of the more serious Tidy BS5, a campaign which uses Twitter hashtag #TidyBS5 to alert the council to instances of fly-tipping in the area.

Now, due to the popularity and success of Get the Easton Look, Raistrick has organised a skip to be placed on All Hallows Road until Wednesday and is asking residents and art-lovers to fill it with fly-tipped “installations” found in the area.

In typically sarcastic fashion, he writes: “‘Skip?’ is a participatory anti-art installation in which conventional boundaries of art and refuse are explored through interaction with found objects.”

He adds: “Is the whole process a wry commentary on gentrification or a cynical attempt by Green Bank estate agents to manipulate house prices?”

Here are five of the best recent posts on Get the Easton Look:

1. A Family Portrait

“This immersive, interactive piece has evolved over the weekend. In an effort to challenge the notion of ‘risk taking’ in art, real glass has been carefully scattered in front of the portrait which in parallel illustrates the perceived lack of ‘accessibility’ in so much of this genre.”
By Malcolm Hamilton

2. Untitled

“Untitled mixed media piece in which carefully-placed objet trouvé are utilised in order to offer up a playfully post modern riff on impermanence, masculinity and celebrity culture.”
By Nick Raistrick

3. Explosive Art

“A masterpiece. Collaboration effort by anonymous local artists. Explosive, spontaneous, moody colours, textural, gestural, a comment on the ‘disposable’ attitudes of our times and a powerful site specific piece cutting to the core of our psychogeographical urban landscape. Shock art.”
By Sadie Few

4. 300 Metres From My Front Door is not My Problem

“A rare chance to see a dual location exhibit, these items started life at the artists residence at 105 Devon Road, before moving to a final location at the top of steps leading up from colston road. the piece is cleverly titled ‘300 metres from my front door is not my problem’.”
By Neil Foster

5. Pushing Boundaries

“Pushing the boundaries… This artist clearly doesn’t like the constraints of definition and fights it at every turn with this installation. 1) Is the toilet household waste 2) If it is household waste why is it not in the bin? 3) Why should be hide away in a toilet anyway? Let’s excrete alfresco?”
By Hannah Crudge

All pictures and commentary from Get the Easton Look.