The green touch

Flip-flops galore

German "artivist" Liina Klauss aims to close the gap between people and the garbage they produce by turning the latter into art. A painter by training, she organizes frequent beach clean-ups in Bali and Hong Kong. The trash collected from the beaches is arranged to make vivid and gigantic multicolor mosaics resembling waterfalls and rainbows. Some of these can be up to 30 meters wide.

Klauss says her artworks are aimed at resolving trauma. By participating in the act of gathering trash, people have a direct encounter with the magnitude of the problem and also a role, even if a minuscule one, in solving it, creating a thing of beauty with a healing effect at the same time.

"When it comes to pollution, it's easy to feel desperate and powerless if we don't process the sorrow and pain that mankind has caused the environment. But if you can alter the landscape around you with your own two hands - get dirty, sweaty and physical with the garbage - you're making the crisis very tangible and much easier to understand," she says.

"Just imagine finding more than 1,000 flip-flops in just three hours of scouring a beach. The next time you go to a shoe store, you'll look at the products in a different light."

Though she proudly wears the "eco-artist" badge, Klauss says her work is different from the "superficial 'green craft' that just glues pieces of trash together". One of her missions is to clear misconceptions about trash, which is most often equated with dirt in popular imagination.

"I want to rid trash of its associations with something that is dirty and unwanted," Klauss says. "From a distance, I want you to see art rather than trash. But once you come closer and see the millions of flip-flops, you will be overwhelmed."