As part of a Houston Arts Alliance public art project for the City of Houston Solid Waste Department, we designed one of six city recycling trucks that have been put into daily use around the city. CORE also managed the production of the other 5 trucks by various Houston artists. The truck was featured in the 2014 Houston Art Car parade.

Using the sun as our light source, we created cyanotype prints (blueprints) of transparent recyclables. Like a haunting x-ray, the ghostly prints of these banal objects become a visual metaphor of the lasting environmental effects of the waste we produce. The mandala pattern, a “revelatory symbol of cosmic truths,” became a natural means to organize and create harmonic beauty out of trash.