In the world of art, Thomas Dambo’s wooden giants stand out not only for their impressive size and detail, but also for the powerful message they convey about the importance of recycling.
Recycle art in all shapes and sizes
Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist who works with recycled materials. For the giant trolls he’s built all around the world, he uses scrapwood that he finds locally.
His giants show the enormous impact of recycling and what can arise when we stop seeing trash as something disgusting, but rather as something beautiful; an opportunity for art!
growing up building
Thomas Dambo grew up in the ‘happy hippie days’ in a collective outside of Ulse, in Denmark, being taught about sustainability and recycling. He’d join his mother to flee markets, wear second hand clothes and when consuming media, he had to create something with it (say, a drawing after watching Batman). In this way, he’s always been educated to make things himself.
This showed when he went to school and was given the chance to build on a little wooden house; all his spare time would go into building, hiking and more building. He’d always have the ideas and the energy to attract people to work with him, back when he was a kid, and now as a recycle artist. Now he gets to travel around the world to help rid towns of trash and make amazing art in the process.
He’s made happy walls, created eery sculptures for festivals entire forests out of trash and of course wooden giants; hidden in the woods and protecting entire islands!
The Happy Wall
When he was still in school, he came up with the Happy Wall: an installation that consists of wooden blocks, on spinners in various colours so that they could be flipped to make different patterns. He later made larger versions of this wall in several places in the world. He’s gotten thousands of pictures since from people posing in front of the wall, showing how happy they are and even proposing in front of the wall!
workshops, festivals future forests
Thomas wants to show people what all can be done with trash. He believes that the best way to rid the world of our trash problem is when we can teach people to recycle better and use the trash as something valuable. He’s given workshops in schools to teach children this from a young age.
Together with school children, he’s created an entire forest out of plastic waste in a gigantic park in downtown Mexico City. This project, called ‘future forest’ is a 500 square meter big installation with thousands of different (plastic) flowers, trees and animals. Together they went to the landfill and collected the plastic waste and they made workshops where people could participate in building objects for the forest. When it was finished, one could walk around it like in a real forest.
He’s even managed to create a festival out of waste from another festival with about 4000 beer cans at a camping site!
These Danish giants hide off the beaten track and can only be found with treasure maps
Over the last 5 years he has made 41 big recycled sculptures around the world, and he’s made 6 hidden giants in his hometown of Copenhagen. The giants are to be found in some of his favourite off-the-beaten-track places around the city where people don’t go often. The sculptures can only be found by using a treasure map, or a poem engraved into a stone near each sculpture, giving hints on how to find the different giants. (via Playgound+)
The Six Forgotten Giants can only be found by using a treasure map Go hunting for The Six Forgotten Giants in Rødovre, Hvidovre, Vallensbæk, Ishøj, Albertslund and Høje Taastrup. The project wants to bring art out of the museum, show the beautiful and often overlooked nature spots in the western part of Copenhagen, and at the same time give an exciting and different experience. Source: BoredPanda
Teddy Friendly Teddy Friendly is made from local scrapwood, including cut offs from cut down local trees, which has been used for his fur. He is standing at a water stream, at a lake holding out his hand helping people to cross (click on the “Source” of any image to see a gallery of that sculpture). Source: ThomasDambo.com
Oscar Under The Bridge Oscar Under The Bridge is made from scrapwood from a torn down watermill and broken pallets from local industries. He is named after an artist from Chile who came to visit Thomas and help him in his work during the time that Thomas and his team was building the sculpture. Source: ThomasDambo.com
Sleeping Louis Sleeping Louis is taking a nap on a hill, covered in trees and nature, in a secret place in Rødovre outside of Copenhagen. People can crawl into his gaping mouth, and play or even sleep inside of him. Source: ThomasDambo.com
Little Tilde Little Tilde is located in the area of Vallensbæk Mose, af beautiful area filled with wild nature and animal life. She watches through the trees at the other side of a small lake, from where you will be able to catch a glimpse of her at a distance. Source: ThomasDambo.com
This article was first published on BrightVibes on 13 December 2017.
40 Phenomenal DIY Scrap Wood Home Decorations
You might not have either the space, the time, or the faintest inclination to build wooden giants — but you could get in the spirit by starting small with one of these funky little DIY scrap wood projects to craft some unique art for your home.