The Ojai Art Festival is holding an international juried show of art from trash, discarded objects and materials. The art will be shown in approx. 40 shops, restaurants and galleries in Ojai from November 7 thru November 24, 2013. The opening weekend is November 7-10, coinciding with the Ojai Film Festival's Focus Earth screenings. Every year, nearly 4,500 people attend the film festival events. It is our goal to stimulate environmental awareness, encourage conservation, and promote new ways of thinking about art, sustainability, and the environment.

DISCARTED asks artists to work with trash, discarded objects and materials to raise questions and ideas, aesthetic and moral, about the life of the planet our wasteful society threatens.

We are fortunate that we get to interact with artists, directors and curators from all over the country who use our software every day. After four years of running our business, we decided to pursue a goal of creating our own festival that would be inclusive, interesting, and compelling as well as create opportunities for inspiration and change. Community collaboration and support is part of what makes Ojai a special place. We consulted with the annual Ojai Film Festival about our idea and they asked if we would consider doing an art festival around an environmental theme in conjunction with Focus Earth, a segment of the festival that brings awareness, through film, to the environmental challenges of our time.

DISCARTED, art from trash, discarded objects and materials was conceived. We   decided early on that we didn't want the art to just be in one or even two galleries. Rather, we wanted the community to be an active participant in the festival. Shop owners, restaurants, the dry cleaners, hotels, the bike shop, the winery, the feed store, even the ice cream shops (40 and growing) all have agreed to house the art so that in daily interactions, questions and ideas can be raised about the life of our planet. In addition to a juried call that invites artists internationally to submit their artwork, we are featuring a performance by the art collective Fallen Fruit, an homage to Gordon Matta-Clark’s Garbage Wall, an installation by Joshua Short, and a photographic series by Enrico Natali.