The profile of an elegant metallic tree flirts with the silhouette of the impressive mountains that surround the cultural center Sagarmatha Next, in the Khumbu valley of Nepal. The Canadian Floyd Elzinga is the author of this and other sculptures that shine at 3,775 meters above sea level, on the route chosen each year by thousands of trekkers to reach the Everest base camp. Elzinga has made use of construction waste, old pieces of electrical appliances taken from landfills, and even parts of a Russian helicopter that crashed very close in 2003, to light works in the workshop set up in this sort of high-rise museum. . This Himalayan enclave has been exhibiting garbage transformed into art for a year, when it opened its doors, with a clear educational mission.
Seventy years after the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and the Nepalese Tenzing Norgay became the first human beings to set foot on the roof of the world, at 8,849 meters, and return to tell about it, the accumulation of waste on this mountain, and in general throughout the region, is an environmental problem that requires urgent solutions. The promoters of Sagarmatha Next have focused on finding outlets for the solid waste that ends up in some 80 landfills scattered throughout the Khumbu valley. Another story is the embarrassing filth that surfaces in Everest's high altitude camps.
These days, coinciding with the celebrations for the feat of Hillary and Norgay, on May 29, devastating images of empty oxygen bottles, tents, food, plastic and other products abandoned at more than 8,000 meters have been disseminated.
One of the architects of this cultural complex is the Swedish Tommy Gustafsson, who precisely in 2011 enrolled in an Everest cleaning expedition. “In one month we removed nine tons of garbage and the following year we began to talk about this project, to help manage waste in the Khumbu region, to promote its recycling, to create art with them and to do pedagogy among the local population and foreign visitors,” says Gustafsson, who lives in Nepal.
Everest (Sagarmatha for Nepalis), a magnet for vanities, has been used as a symbol to try to strengthen the message of respect for nature.
Gustafsson comments that every year at least 60,000 tourists, accompanied by 20,000 guides, porters, cooks and other workers from different parts of Nepal, enter the Khumbu Valley, with no more than 9,000 inhabitants, to trek or climb peaks. This important human flow brings dividends but also generates about 800 kilos of waste daily, which mainly ends up in the 80 landfills where they are burned. Gustafsson and various foundations with which he has allied want to value the garbage and that it be treated to prevent it from damaging the environment.
Different programs gravitate around Sagarmatha Next, including the artist residency for creators from all over the world, such as the Canadian Floyd Elzinga, the German Rocco and his brothers or the American Emma Fern Curtis. The three settled for a season last year in this complex at the foot of Everest, in Syangboche, to carry out their work using waste.
Rocco and his brothers collected a thousand empty beer cans to string together in front of the brand new museum an installation inspired by the Tibetan prayer flags that hang in every house. Next to it, as can be seen in the photograph, emerge two metallic trees that are part of the set of 25 works that Elzinga produced during his prolific stay in this corner of the Himalayas.
Emma Fern Curtis chose to paint on scrap plywood and on scraps of cardboard. She also used this latest product salvaged from wastebaskets as picture frames, and the plastic bottle caps to hang her canvases in the Denali Schmidt gallery, in the main building of Sagarmatha Next. After this experience, Fern Curtis studies how to continue betting on recycling in her future work.
The aforementioned gallery permanently exhibits as many productions by young artists, most of them Nepalese, such as Kumar Thapa, Hishila Maharjan, Suraj Subba Limbu and Saurav Koirala, who have resorted to scrap metal and old soda cans to complete their proposals.
