The street artist David Anasagasti is paying you to pick up the trash around you, using his most valuable currency — his art.
David’s work sells in galleries for thousands of dollars.
You’ve seen his collage of sleepless eyes spray-painted all over Miami, watching over his hometown. It’s tagged with his street name, Ahol Sniffs Glue.
But for the last three years, he’s been giving it away because his art isn’t painted on canvas. It’s painted on trash.
David paints on random discarded items as he bikes around the streets of Miami. He posts a picture of it on his social media and sets off a mad scavenger hunt. People rush to pick up trash that previously went unnoticed.
This morning, we went on a ride with him. Our producers Elisa Baena and Helen Acevedo tailed him for an hour around downtown as he turned trash into treasure.
When someone finds one of his pieces, David takes an extra step — he mints an NFT of the photo and gives it to the art collector. It’s a way to make our waves of trash noticeable and make art more accessible.
He started a kind of movement. He developed the project at Florida International University’s Ratcliffe Art + Design Incubator. Now, cities are writing proclamations, praising what he’s doing for the art and for the environment.
On the July 31 episode of Sundial, we got David out of the heat and brought him into our studio to talk about his project and his journey as an artist.
On Sundial's previous episode, Diana Eusebio joined us to talk about her new opportunity to continue to study the city, community and cultures that made her.
Listen to Sundial Monday through Thursday on WLRN, 91.3 FM, live at 1 p.m., rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Missed a show? Find every episode of Sundial on your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.
