An 18-year-old artist from Zimbabwe has used e-waste to create a beautiful small-scale model of Westminster out of old computer parts.
Zayd Menk previously built a 165-by-80cm scale model of Manhattan out of unwanted electronics for a school project. It took him three months, and he had to scavenge computer parts from friends and family and even the roadside.
Menk’s model caught the eye of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which runs Technology Renewal Centres across the UK (there are some cool 360-degree photos inside the one in Andover). They gave Menk access to the e-waste in their centres, and challenged him with turning it into a scale model of London.
97 hours later, Menk has made a beautiful replica of Westminster out of bits of PC that were going to waste. It includes Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge and even the London Aquarium — a perfect place for Dave Lister’s robot fishto live out their lives.
Coming from Harare where electronic waste has caused pollution, Menk was inspired to create art out of found objects because he wants to see a world where nothing goes to waste, where every old motherboard finds a new home.
He says:
“In the future, if companies embrace the idea of the circular economy, e-waste might not be an issue and my artwork might be seen as a sort of weird historical artifact from a time when we didn’t know any better.”
‘A time when we didn’t know any better,’ — we reckon Zayd’s written our era a new slogan there.