Recycled ornaments

Written by: Štěpánka Strouhalová
Photo by: Věroslav Sixt & archiv

By reviving an old ornament and incorporating modern waste, Radana Lencová discovered a way to recycle culture along with cast-offs.

RADANA LENCOVÁ began transforming waste into art during her studies in Granada, Spain. Under the influence of Arabic mosaic patterns, she glued together windows from supermarket bags, which she installed on large glass doors: “I felt that the ornament as such must receive greater emphasis. For me it was a way to walk a central path, to feel harmony. Working with an ornament was also a form of meditation. At the same time I was clearing my apartment of useless plastic,” she says. After returning from Spain, she started to collect milk and juice cartons, which are among the least recyclable materials, led on by her vision of a large light mosaic. “A light mosaic works on the opposite principle to that on which a window pane works. Surfaces and colors connected by black borders are not illuminated, the light gaps themselves connect dark surfaces,” Radana explains.
In Granada she created a mosaic measuring 2.3 x 3.5 meters, with motives of ceiling carvings from the Arabian fortress Alhambra. This constituted her diploma work in typography. “I had a feeling that I was continuing something that transcends a simple pattern form. Its rules are also seated in our culture, and it creates itself by means of waste of civilization, in order to show that it functions even now,” she explains. As a defense of this “living ornament,” she chose an oriental dance: “The dance elements, originating from alternating calm and movement, helped me find an ornament as the rules of life.”
At first glance, the decorative “kaleidoscopes” are a logical challenge to renew and recycle in a broader sense. Lighted posters, plastic window panes, and mosaics made of plastic bags, PET bottles, beverage cartons, or banana crates bear out the several layers of significance, together with the idea for “transforming waste.”
If you want to follow in Radana’s footsteps, you can, according to her instructions, start like this: cut out the bottom of a PET bottle (shaped like a flower) and sew several dozen, or hundred, together until you come up with the form of colored water lilies or a carpet. Hang it on a wall or glass surface and let the game of light and shadow dance.

“Living ornament” (paper box Tetra Pack), 350 x 230 cm, 2000

“Lamps” (paper box Tetra Pack, colored foils), 2000

“Tender window-pane” (paper box Tetra Pack), 90 x 67 cm, 2000

“Plastic vitraj No. 7” , 1999

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