Community Impact

The work on display was transformative for many of the people who came to the opening exhibit as well as many of those eating in the restaurant in the following months the exhibit remained on display. Many attendees of the opening and customers of the restaurant engaged in conversations about the amount of garbage, especially plastic, they had grown accustomed to ignoring in their every day lives. Some of the attendees pledged to start collecting their plastic refuse to gague just how many disposable products they accumulated without realizing it, while others mentioned they would like to collect their garbage to donate to the artist for future works. The exhibit fused together an awareness for the environment with the visual arts, kicking off a kind of mini Eco-Art movement in Central NJ, by inspiring other groups and organizations, like Sustainable Highland Park and the Highland Park Artist Collective to explore environmental themes in their art exhibits and merge their sustainability work with the arts.