Recycled Plastic Bags & NYC Subway Air Give Rise To a Menagerie of Animated Creatures

Let's be honest. Recycling tangible materials such as metal, glass and plastic into artistic creations has been done ad nauseam.  

Once you've seen your 328^th recycled glass sculpture, there's an evil voice that creeps up inside of you and says, "Nexxxxxt!"

Don't get me wrong. I like seeing artistic innovation as much as the next guy, but after a while it's kind of easy to get jaded and, well, bored.

Show me something...anything...that will wake me up from the eco-art coma that has taken over my formerly enchanted mind.

I'm pretty much convinced that New York artist Joshua Allen Harris has galloped onto the scene (just in the nick of time) to restore my faith in the originality of the eco-art movement.

Instead of gluing cutesy googley eyes on reclaimed plastic bottles or dabbing a little paint onto rinsed-out aluminum cans and proclaiming Voila! Check out my terribly clever spruced-up piece of trash!!", Harris is taking advantage of a resource that the majority of us don't even give a second thought to.   

I'm talking about air...actually harnessing the raw flowing power of the stinky, hot air that is channeled through the Big Apple's subway grates.  

It may not be a glamorous resource, but it is a resource nonetheless...and NO ONE in the history of the world (aside from Marilyn Monroe) has bothered to take advantage of it with such humor and artistic insight.

The photos throughout this article capture the infinite ways in which Harris has channeled hot New Yawk subway air into strategically assembled recycled plastic bags, in effect animating his menagerie of Mother Nature's real (and entirely imagined) creatures.

"Recently I think we have all become more aware of our human footprint and what it means for our environment," Harris explains, "and that we all have a space in our kitchen where these bags begin to accumulate."

Everyone has probably witnessed cast aside plastic bags taking flight via a strong gust of wind - it's a weird sight to behold, both beautiful in its liberation and ugly in the simple fact that there should never be anything "pretty" about pollution.

Interestingly, the actual inspiration for Harris' unique creations came from one common and all-too-abundant sight on the streets of the Big Apple -- orange tape rising from a subway exhaust grate.

"It just glided skyward, almost asking for attention. I then became interested in what that wind could do and how I could work with it."

Melding energy-charged air with recycled plastic bags has proven to be a brilliant combination for the artist, and the effect...well, you be the judge.

Giving renewed purpose to both resources, his art can be likened to that of a light bulb moment where we are reminded there is much to appreciate in this world, particularly the little things that we most frequently dismiss.

Thar she blows!

Harris concludes with this thought, "Some people have suggested that the polar bear is an icon of global warming and that the wind is an example of a renewable energy. When the bear is animated, he looks happy, and when the resource is gone, the bear slowly dies. I find this explanation encouraging."

Do you agree?