An essential element of creating works on the street or in the public sphere is having the latitude to discover and experiment. Here on Utsira Island in Norway the Street Art brothers Icy & Sot have been discovering ways to work with the garbage that the sea brings to the shores.

Icy & Sot. Utsira Island, Norway. July 2017. (photo © Icy & Sot)

It’s an interesting way to spend your time when there is not really a street culture of any sort on this island where the total population is less than can fit into a subway car. Nonetheless the garbage that the artists were able to collect among these rolling hills of waving green grasses reminded them of the cities they’ve traveled to and made artwork for.

Somewhere along the way the guys Street Art practice has morphed into Land art, a movement quite separate from graffiti and Street Art, yet another one that was at least in part started by New York artists who were getting out of the city in the 1960s and 70s. Rather then manipulating the Earth directly, however, I&S are using as a canvas.

Icy & Sot. Utsira Island, Norway. July 2017. (photo © Icy & Sot)

Here at the water’s edge and far from the urban scene, Icy & Sot experiment with these found objects to further their examination of environmental matters, a theme they have often spoken to in their Street Art work.

“Norway is one of the most environmentally friendly nations on earth,” says Icy, “Especially Utsira which is a super clean and magical Island with 211 people living on it. It is frustrating to see all this plastic waste on the shores. This could have been dumped in the ocean in any part of the world, and if we collected it from the entire island it would create a huge mountain of plastic.”

Icy & Sot. Utsira Island, Norway. July 2017. (photo © Icy & Sot)

One man’s garbage is another man’s art materials, so the artists show us here sculptural works and installations that they created while there.

“We did some interventions, installations about the environment and the plastic pollution,” says Sot. “We made all the works by using garbage that we collected with the islanders from a very small section of a shore in the island. In an hour we were able to collect so much plastic, there was everything you can think of that is made out of plastic; gasoline cans, soda/water bottles, shampoo, slippers …”

Icy & Sot. Utsira Island, Norway. July 2017. (photo © Icy & Sot)

Icy & Sot. Utsira Island, Norway. July 2017. (photo © Icy & Sot)

Icy & Sot. Utsira Island, Norway. July 2017. (photo © Icy & Sot

“Warming Warning”, by Icy & Sot

Icy & Sot. Utsira Island, Norway. July 2017. (photo © Icy & Sot)

“Human Reflection On The Ocean”, by Icy & Sot

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