Happy Decay (artist Bjarni Wark) and Shellharbour Mayor Chris Homer with one of the brightly decorated garbage trucks. Photo: Shellharbour City Council.
Bjarni Wark’s latest work is a load of garbage – and he couldn’t be happier.
As street artist and digital illustrator Happy Decay, Bjarni teamed up with Shellharbour City Council to transform garbage trucks into works of art, which aim to educate the community about waste management and promote sustainable habits.
The trucks, which started appearing early in the year, feature coffee cups shredding on skateboards, nature-loving avocados and chatty pizza boxes.
Designed to capture attention, each mural and character tells a story and helps to identify the correct disposal for different rubbish, including FOGO, recycling and general waste.
Bjarni said the initiative, Waste: Let’s Get it Sorted!, was a fun project to create a positive awareness around waste through art.
One of Bjarni’s garbage trucks with a colourful message. Photo: Shellharbour City Council.
“I hope the background imagery of the murals will make these trucks a pleasure to see coming up the street,” he said.
“The idea is that by sorting our waste more effectively, we get to live in a cleaner environment.
“Hopefully, in time, people will start to recognise these friendly characters and associate them with the correct bin they belong in, in a positive way.”
The designs will also be incorporated into waste-related materials citywide, fostering intrigue and brand recognition.
Shellharbour City Mayor Chris Homer said the campaign brightened up city streets with fantastic artwork and played a crucial role in educating the community about proper waste management.
“By making waste fun and engaging, we’re fostering a culture of sustainability that will benefit Shellharbour for years to come,” he said.
Bjarni’s work appears on a number of walls and spaces in areas around Canberra, Sydney, and across Australia. His work is well-known in the Eurobodalla, where he lives at Moruya.
The name, Happy Decay, is a play on words.
“(It’s) the idea of bringing happiness through street art to areas of the environment that are decaying and could do with a bit of a facelift,” he said.
“Also, Happy Decay is easier to say and remember than Bjarni Wark.”
Bjarni graduated with a first-class honours degree from the Graphic Investigation Workshop at Canberra’s ANU and then took a year’s alumni residency.
“Today as a street artist/illustrator I focus on working with urban environments and objects down to small book-sized editorial illustrations,” he said.
“One of my main services through street art is looking at urban activation within shared spaces. Making a shared space a more enjoyable experience for the people who have to use it.”
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