With the plastic menace in our daily life attaining a dangerous level day after day, Delhi-based artist Manveer Singh, the winner for the “METIS Initiative on Plastics and Indo-Pacific Ocean 2021," shared his knowledge and inspired students on how to convert plastic to meaningful art forms.
The artist, staying at Utsha Foundation for his work, interacted with 28 peer leaders (Pragati Stathis) of the Socially Smart Bhubaneswar Project. He explained the participants how plastics have started polluting the soil, ocean and the air and unless an initiative is started at personal level, it would be too late. Member Finance, Bhubaneswar Development Authority, Sanjay Das and General Manager (Special and Social Projects) of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, Diptirani Sahoo also joined.
Currently, the artist is not only collecting plastics through his 40-odd habit changer boxes placed at several locations across the city, but also interacting with students of different educational institutions to spread the awareness on plastic pollution.
Through his single-handed approach and team of dedicated workforce to manage the plastic pollution, Manveer has so far helped in up-cycling/reusing more than 350 kg of plastics in India. He displayed his techniques of weaving the coloured plastics to create beautiful objects, which would be given different shapes and sizes to create art objects.
Swarnaprabha Nayak, a student of Plus 3 Arts from Debroy College, Nayapalli, who was part of the workshop, said, "We came to know and realize the extent of pollution from plastics around us at the workshop. I will definitely try to minimize its effect in our environment."
Chinki Das, a Class-X student from Unit IX Girls’ High School said, "Apart from keeping the plastics to recycle and reuse, I also came to know that we must ensure segregation of wastes at source to rescue our environment from the plastic menace.’’
Dinesh Behera a Plus 2 first year Arts student from Ekamra College, Bhubaneswar, said "The workshop enlightened us in many ways so that we can help the city in a clean and green vision.’’
Manveer will develop an artistic work on the endangered sea turtles on the concept of plastics and ocean survival in Odisha context.
The artwork will be based on plastic waste to create public awareness about recycling and the need to reduce consumption. The art work is likely to be displayed on the Puri beach on November 23. The final display at Utsha Foundation will be held on November 28.
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The METIS initiative is part of the French Development Agency (AFD) celebrating its 80th Anniversary on December 2, this year and for this the agency has planned events across the Indo-Pacific Region. AFD has decided to launch a global initiative METIS, to create a global public opinion on marine debris and pollution.