ARTISTIC WASTE REUSE: A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING YOUTH'S UNEMPLOYMENT IN LAGOS, NIGERIA.

Abstract

This paper advocates the conscious repurposing of waste like plastic bottles, cardboard (cartons), unused textile materials, cans, and papers into artworks and projects in Lagos. Lagosians considers Lagos as Nigeria's economic hub and Africa's largest megacity. The city is home to over twenty million people and a global centre for finance, tech, fashion, and entertainment. As an urban setting in a developing landscape, Lagos faces systemic challenges, including flooding and waste management; its low-lying geography has led
to several seasonal floods. A major cause is the careless disposal of plastics and other single-use waste, which is indiscriminately dumped into drainage structures. Lagos also contends with youth unemployment and security issues. Reusing waste can engage the youths to benefit financially and provide creative, eco-friendly ways to beautify the environment, homes, and offices. The paper adopted the Grounded-Theory model, a nonnumerical method that treats artistic practice and the environment as data to articulate a paradigm, coupled with literature reviews and an appraisal of three artists who engages waste as materials for art constructions. The non-numerical data proposes a strategy of creative waste recycling as a useful tool for employment, research, decoration, intervention, advocacy nudging, and waste management. Creative waste reuse is further proposed as a potent means to mitigate unemployment and insecurity. The approach is exhibited as a strategy to engage Lagosians' cultural convictions, reduce pollution, and curb youth's violence in Lagos, identifies as the “Centre of Excellence”.