Trash Trailer
Designs for a mobile, educational art installation,
created for the Steel Yard and Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council
Lead Artist, 2020-21
In 2020, Tim Ferland, Public Projects Director at the Steel Yard, reached out to me with a unique invitation— to design the interior/exterior walls of a mobile art installation that would showcase real trash and sediment dredged up from the Providence River. The idea for the project started with Dan Goulet of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, who identified the need for a new teaching tool to support community awareness of river conservation.
Originally, the trailer was slated to display a mountainous exhibition of river trash. In the Steel Yard's hands, the concept for the project evolved to encompass an immersive visual narrative and tactile experience that spectators could walk through. This is where they brought me in, to flesh out designs.
Lead Fabricator, Elsa Hoffman, worked with other metal artists at the Steel Yard to translate my color illustrations and folded paper machetes into glorious metalwork.
The trailer features marine flora and fauna that are native to Providence, Rhode Island’s brackish waters, including oysters, crayfish, tautog, and various seagrass. To make these choices, I called upon the consultation of local marine scientists. There is a counter-clockwise current that takes the viewer, first, under a mountain of trash, devoid of marine life, then towards diminishing trash and gradually increasing signs of life. Through this intentionally optimistic progression, the final panel reveals young fish and crustacea, vibrant color (suggesting clear water), and biodiversity— all indicators of a healthy aquatic biome.
Coupled with bi-lingual information panels, we hope that the trailer immerses each viewer in both an emotional experience and language for the challenges facing marine life of the Providence River, calling citizens to take specific, actionable steps to restore a vulnerable and beautiful ecosystem.
Photo: Trash Trailer at WaterFire, courtesy of Dan Goulet
Trash Trailer, parked outside of the Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island
Dimensions: 10’ x 6’ x 8’
Media: plasma-cut and forged steel, enamel paint, acrylic, trash, dry sediment
Photos: Jenny Sparks
The following images are original mixed media designs and illustrations created for large-scale reproduction
Scale model of Trash Trailer
Media: paper, acetate, foam core
Scale: 1:12
Exterior Entrance to Trash Trailer, digital color mock-up
Select drawings:
Oysters, Herring, Mayflies, Tautog, Spartina, Trout
Media: pen and ink, digital finishing
Learn more about the Steel Yard
Read about the evolution of the Trash Trailer in the Providence Journal
If you would like to schedule a visit from the Trash Trailer, please contact Ryan Moore at CRMC
(401)783-3370, rmoore@crmc.ri.gov