American Artscape Notable Quotable: Billy Dufala of Recycled Artist in Residency (RAIR) Philly
Hsin Yu-Chen (2022 Open Call Resident) affixes a camera to an excavator claw. Photo courtesy of Recycled Artist in Residency (RAIR)
“In a lot of practices, it's making these things that you then bring back to your studio or you crate and ship and store and have to transport, or show in a museum or a gallery, or whatever. [The biggie shortie] is really about that co-opting of site materials and equipment in a way that you're experimenting. For me, it's a model that allows a lot of latitude and experimentation for artists, room to fail…. At the end of the process, once you've captured and documented that project, it can go back into the waste stream if it needs to.”
Billy Dufala is a sculptor and co-founder/creative director of Recycled Artist in Residency (RAIR) Philly, an artist-in-residence program based at Revolution Recovery, a commercial waste facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the new issue of American Artscape, Dufala spoke with us about the ways in which RAIR facilitates creative projects by providing artists with access to recycled materials and industrial equipment, allowing them to repurpose waste in innovative ways and promoting sustainable art practices.
