NIFT students create plastic monster to discourage use

Two angel wings — in the shape of a butterfly — now welcome visitors at the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) Deer Park in south Delhi’s Hauz Khas.

A group of six students from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) have found their way to deal with waste. Two angel wings — in the shape of a butterfly — now welcome visitors at the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) Deer Park in south Delhi’s Hauz Khas.

NIFT students used littered plastic items to create two angel wings at the Deer Park in Hauz Khas.(Amal KS/Ht photo)

The colourful wings titled ‘The Devil Wears Plastic’ is an art installation crafted out of plastic and other waste material that was found dumped by students in the park itself.

It took them at least eight Sundays of plogging (collecting trash while jogging) to collect around 50 sacks of waste such as plastic bottles, chips packets, ice-cream sticks and polythene bags to create the structure.

“We started with a plogging drive two hours every Sunday for over two months and found so much waste that we would have at least six to seven sacks full of litter every drive. It helped us spread word about not dumping waste, while some visitors even joined us in the exercise,” said Anjali Kumar, 19, a first-year student of fashion communication, NIFT-Delhi.

While some of the waste collected was sent to a nearby recycling facility, the non-recyclable material — such as plastic — was used in making the ‘The Devil Wears Plastic’ installation at the park’s entrance. The art project was unveiled last Sunday.

The initiative was taken up as a project by first-year students under the subject ‘Social Design’ aimed at finding solutions to social issues and peoples’ apathy.

“The project was meant to focus on human-centric problems in a designated area and find solutions to the same. The students found irresponsible waste disposal by visitors at the park and started a cleaning drive. Later, we decide to use the non-recycleable waste into an installation to motivate people against littering,” said Pritika Bawa, assistant professor, management department, NIFT.

The team collaborated with two NGOs working in the field and roped in an architect to help put together the installation.