Julian Melcer, the artist who collects cigarette butts and transforms them into his works

Julian Mercer, 32, born and resident in Tel Aviv, began his art project almost by accident. On his 24th birthday, while at the beach, he was struck by the quantity of cigarette butts strewn across the sand. He says he saw smokers using the beach as a giant ashtray and decided he couldn't just be outraged: he had to do something.

From that moment on, he began collecting cigarette butts from the city's beaches and streets. He soon turned this activity into a collective project, founding the volunteer organization in 2018. Clean the Butts (in Italian: Clean the cigarette butts), which involves citizens and volunteers in cleaning public spaces.

Julian interprets his role as an artist with a very pragmatic activism. He wanders the streets and beaches of Tel Aviv, frequented by foreigners as well, collecting cigarette butts, which he then uses to create highly evocative artworks. These works are truly protestatory, as well as possessing a powerful aesthetic quality.

Cigarette butts become the material with which he creates visually arresting compositions and installations, constructed from what is normally ignored or discarded. His works aim to raise awareness of the relationship between consumption, pollution, and individual responsibility.

Using cigarette butts collected through his volunteer organization, Julian Melcer creates paintings, mosaics, sculptures, and installations. The works preserve the butts as a visible element to remind the viewer of the material's origins and the impact of pollution. The goal is not only aesthetic, but above all educational: each work illustrates how harmful a seemingly trivial act like throwing a cigarette on the ground can be.

The images are taken from the Facebook page . Clean the Butts

Julian Melcer, the artist who creates his works with cigarette butts collected by volunteers

Read also:

Want to see a selection of our news?