By Koy Flores
WKTV Contributor
A holiday treat came early for 22 ArtPrize winners in the form of a $400,000 prize pool as the international art competition concluded Friday, Oct. 3.
Many stories were told through the 931 works submitted to ArtPrize by 1,100 artists. Among them was one of ecological stewardship told through a glamorous re-creation of our own waste.
Grand Dome is a 10-foot by 17-foot geodesic sculpture created by artist Adrienne Outlaw and currently on display at the Grand Valley State University (GVSU) Eberhard Center. The piece is made from more than 100,000 plastic bottle caps collected by community members who then helped Outlaw construct the piece in a collaborative project.
Protecting the world through art
Grand Dome is the latest in Outlaw’s national public art initiative, where she works with river cities to create large-scale collaborative artworks to promote ecological stewardship against plastic pollution. The sculpture took three months to make and is a follow-up to Outlaw’s Reef, a 6-foot by 8-foot sculpture also made of plastic bottle caps, that was showcased at ArtPrize 2024.
Outlaw said she has been “working with found objects and ideas for global consumerism” for most of her career. In 2019, Outlaw took a trip to Southeast Asia where she was blindsided by the effect of the U.S. plastic pollution on Asian countries, namely Singapore, Cambodia and Malaysia.
“I worked with some artists there, and we would take microplastics out of the beach sand,” said Outlaw. “At the same time, China announced that they weren’t taking our waste anymore…then I started thinking of plastic as an issue.
“I moved to St. Louis in 2015 and started doing research. I realized the Mississippi Watershed drains 40% of the water waste from the U.S. Even Grand Rapids is connected to the watershed because of the lock system in Lake Michigan (The Great Lakes and the Mighty Mississippi).”
Outlaw stated that she is addressing these issues with river cities.
“[If] we allow these plastics to enter our waterways they will travel down the Mississippi River, into the Gulf of Mexico and out into the Atlantic Ocean, becoming microplastics.”
Meaningful…trash?
Outlaw expressed novelty for the project because it was a departure from the traditional solitary practice. People would email, call, text, or show up to help contribute to the project “every single day.”
“This project has changed the way I make art.”
Outlaw laughed while recounting how people loved to bring her their trash. “They offered me their labor, time and expertise. People want to do the right thing so badly.”
As fate would have it, one woman from South Haven, MI happened to be an avid bottle cap collector.
“She found out about my work through ArtPrize, tracked me down on the internet and asked if she could donate her collection,” said Outlaw. “I was able to meet up with her along the way to Grand Rapids. She gave me about three years’ worth of bottle caps that she had been collecting with the hope that she could donate them to something meaningful.”
After Outlaw collected the needed amount of bottle caps, she sent them to Michigan and invited Michiganders to help create the panels for Grand Dome. Outlaw’s studio did the mechanical work of putting the panels together, but Outlaw wanted to show community members the “value and joy of working with their hands.”
The main groups that assisted in the creation of Grand Dome were the Mint Artists Guild in Detroit, the GVSU art department and the First Presbyterian Church in Holland.
Outlaw attempts to be inclusive of all people with her collaborative works, providing people a range of participation opportunities from simply donating recyclables to actually putting the panels together with zip ties. Outlaw remarked that she invited participants to write their names on an ID tag before inserting them into the panels, making the experience even more empowering.
Awareness and emulation
Outlaw is proud of the amount of awareness Grand Dome has raised toward excessive consumption and harmful pollution.
“Having people approach the dome from a distance, not understanding what they’re looking at, but then they realize this is our waste,” said Outlaw. “They then realize how much plastic is in our trash. We can address this plastic pollution joyfully, from a grassroots movement, and creatively think about solving these issues. Instead of looking at it from a dismal ‘world is on fire’ mindset.”
A few minor adjustments to our everyday lives can help procure a healthier world for the next generation. Outlaw is a believer in setting examples for emulation.
“You see studies where, if one person does something good, then the next person is likely to do something good,” said Outlaw. “You see that with trash. If one person throws things on the ground, but then you see someone else picking it up (instead) of walking past it or throwing something (as well), you can start collectively moving toward the good and away from the bad.”
Learn more!
To connect with Adrienne Outlaw and view her work, click here.
