UAE - On Saturday (June 4), sustainability platform BLANK will host its first immersive event — Watching Our Waste — in Los Angeles (LA), USA, which will offer experiences of the best in environmentally focused fashion, regenerative art and fine dining, diverting ingredients and materials that were destined for trash.

The ticketed event promises to be a breakthrough in introducing applicable sustainability and encouraging a new wave of carbon literacy. It seeks to demonstrate that quality, beauty and desirability need not be sacrificed when implementing effective solutions around sustainability.

The initiative, which will soon come to Dubai and the Middle East, was launched in London in April.

The soft launch took place at Mayfair’s hottest new sustainable food restaurant Apricity.

The upcoming exhibit is in collaboration with LA-based upcycled and sustainable fashion designers UPRISERS and Rewilder, Michelin-star chef Nate Romo and Zimbabwean artist Moffat Takadiwa.

BLANK founder Brittney McDonald says, “The early-stage startup is bridging the gap between climate innovation and creative expression through cultural experiences. We're operating under a singular hypothesis: the belief that if we provide carbon literacy to people, they will make a more eco-conscious decision. We believe consumers learn best through culture, and that our society’s cultural pillars can be re-imagined to be resilient towards climate change, regenerate our planet’s natural resources, and create cultural tentpole moments that are carbon neutral.”

“I find that people in every industry are trying to figure out how they can all be more sustainable or conscious of their impact, but are they cross-pollinating their thoughts and ideas to collectively achieve the same goal? Are their actions truly making an impact?” she says. “BLANK is at the intersection of a variety of categories for solutions, and all of them are obtainable to allow all of us to live more sustainably both at a corporate and a consumer level,” she adds.

The LA event wants to find a cohesive theme that tackled many of the issues within sustainability but highlighted solutions that were tangible and obtainable.

McDonald says, “she feels it is inevitable to start with waste.”

Chef Romo, a LA-based private chef, whose food is inspired and seasonal, pulling much of his influence from California. He will start the event with a four-course plated meal, where he and his team will take attendees through each dish highlighting aspects where we've extended ingredients, used underutilised parts or brought to the forefront the benefits of regenerative farming.

Zimbabwean contemporary visual artist Moffat Takadiwa, who has shown at galleries in Denmark, Paris, Dubai, Morocco and LA, will take over the proceedings after dinner. He will show five extraordinary pieces from his recent show that just wrapped at the LA gallery, Nicodem, which used plastic and electronic waste to create large-scale pieces.

Alongside his work, UPRISERS, a community-driven streetwear brand, and Rewilder, a redesign company transforming trash, have come together to reimagine what waste looks like with their TEE2.0! initiative.

Their capsules are centered around provoking curiosity and conversation that leads to acting around the intersection of social and environmental justice, mental health and equality. They've fueled campaigns like Hate Is A Virus, Somebody's Beloved with singer-songwriter MILCK, Reimagine Everything with artist and activist Hollis Wong-Wear. They are now tackling issues within sustainability and the influence fashion must create change and long-term impact.

UPRISERS mission is to amplify underrepresented stories through design, and Rewilder are known for repurposing unexpected industrial materials.

Rewilder is a women-owned redesign company transforming trash and defying expectations. From process to products, everything they do challenges the notion of "trash" in a linear economy. Their mission is to make upcycling scalable. In partnering with industrial giants, they identify, divert, and upcycle waste materials in their supply chain that are worthy of a second life.

Prior to BLANK, McDonald spent most of her career in culturally driven, creative industries before moving into the startup world where she was able to see in real time how new innovations and brands were emerging. A theme she noticed in interacting with these startups was that each had a spin or an angle as to how to be more sustainable, but none were expanding beyond their sector or cross-pollinating ideas.

A firm believer that culture drives influence and pushes the narrative to inform and encourage change, she realized she can bring these emerging innovations to the forefront by weaving them into cultural touchpoints that mass audiences already enjoy – specifically art, fashion and food. She saw the need to bridge a gap between the niche and the masses, with the goal to inform and encourage change that drives impact and lowers our carbon footprint. It’s through her work with startups, specifically at Venice-based startup FNDR, she began focusing her attention on initiatives and projects that create significant impact at a systemic level, either through innovation or changing our mindset and behaviour.

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