be it an empty egg carton or an old gumboot chitra mandanna throws nothing away she turns them into pieces of art mandanna belongs to a group of artists who recycle domestic waste industrial scrap and discarded electrical waste to create art she is one of 15 artists who are displaying their works at the restart earth exhibition that was inaugurated at gallery art soul on saturday on earth day i try to upcycle and reuse anything says mandanna 37 whose work using cassette tape egg cartons and old newspaper is on display citybased artist jacob jebaraj has been working with scrap material for more than 10 years recently he finished a large 14ft by 8ft installation called tribute to the wheel barrow at the marg swarnabhoomi campus off ecr there were lots of old wheel barrows lying around says jebaraj the idea is to find value in discarded materials he says shylaja chetlur copromoter and creative director of gallery art soul says that the art show is an attempt to encourage people to reuse waste recycled art is a part of our culture and women have used everything from beads to zari from old sarees to create decorative pieces says chetlur jebaraj says that recycled art is one of the cultural initiatives that have come up in the last decade there was a lull in the chennai art scene after the madras art movement which brought modernism to south india between the 1960s and 1980s this is an effort to come up with alternative forms of art he says though the market for such works is limited awareness about them is increasing says chetlur acclaimed artists such as delhibased vivan sundaram have been using dumpyard waste for a while she says sundarams recent exhibition inspired by lady gaga has dresses made using truck tyre tubes loofahs and surgical masks artists say that the idea is about creating awareness artist k sasikumar 43 has used metal rods sourced from scrap shops to create his installation displayed at the art show we can live in balance with nature only if we maximise the utility of resources and reduce the amount of waste says sasikumar