Orange peel soap making workshop

How, then, can you make deodorant using your trash? How can we turn our oranges into soap?

In this workshop, we’ll be experimenting with creative ways in which to reduce the amount of everyday foodstuffs that end up in the trash at home. The workshop will help both children and their parents understand just how much waste they produce each day, and introduce them to easy recycling techniques that can help them reduce this waste.

Specifically, we’ll be working with orange peel, and presenting interesting recipes that can help us make the most of them.

Alongside this, the 3 137 artist-run space will be hosting the group exhibition Ideas and Solutions for the Home, which springs from the very notion of the home and its rapid transformation from an expression of social gain and the common good to an investment asset. The workshop builds on one of the core themes of the exhibition – concerning the design of homes and infrastructure – to propose greener ways of both consuming energy and managing waste.

Video still | Courtesy of 3 137 and cinematographer Daphne Heretakis

This workshop has been designed as a group activity for all the family, inviting parents and children (aged 7-12) to take part in an environmental rescue operation, through play.

The workshop begins with a short guided tour of the exhibition. There follows a presentation of the circular economy concept, and of the joint research conducted by 3 137 and the scientist Dr. Audrey-Flore Ngomsik as part of the Studiotopia program. We’ll be presenting the products we created together out of our household waste, and providing participants with recipes for all the things they can try themselves at home. The last of these products will be an essential oil made using orange peel, which is also the main ingredient for creating soap. The workshop culminates with the making of various soaps in a series of shapes and colors.

This workshop forms part of the European Studiotopia program, for which the 3 137 arts initiative worked with the scientist Dr. Audrey-Flore Ngomsik, jointly focusing their attentions on how the circular economy might constitute a solution for the creation of a more sustainable food system. Concepts core to their work include cooperation, sustainability, and consumption, and how these relate to climate action and change. Seeking to make us more aware of our environmental footprint, they recorded, then tried to reimagine our everyday dietary habits – how these might change once geared towards a more sustainable planet.

Application and selection process

This program is free. Participants must first register online.

Places will be filled on a first come, first served basis.