With artists Andrea Ku, Niloo Sharifi, and Ecosystem2
What happens to our empty crisp packets, foil trays and cardboard boxes from last night’s takeaway?
Metal commissioned four sustainability-driven artists to take part in Contains Joy – a creative project working with schools and communities across Liverpool to rethink our relationship with waste in fun, imaginative ways.
Focusing on sustainability and collective creation, the artists explored themes including upcycling, the science behind recycling, and citizen activism as Liverpool vows to clean up its act… literally!
Artists Andrea Ku, Adam Sadiq (Ecosystem2), and Niloo Sharifi were our artists in residence across Kirkdale, Wavertree, and Brownlow Hill, hosting hands-on workshops that spark eco-conscious thinking in young minds. Meanwhile, Laura-Kate Draws designed a brand-new educational game, Zero Heroes – a free classroom resource that challenges students to explore the stories behind what we throw away and why.
By focusing on school-aged children, the initiative aimed to instil generational behavioural change, contributing towards an eventual rise in recycling rates in the city. Through socially engaged practice, our programme embedded communication, collaboration, and awareness raising into the heart of every activity.
- Andrea Ku worked with Trinity Catholic Academy on litter-picking and community awareness, leading students in a vibrant parade along the canal towpath, complete with homemade banners.
- Ecosystem2 led a workshop on material sorting through circuit-building, ending with an interactive installation at St Nicholas Catholic Academy showcasing the circuits created by students.
- Niloo Sharifi teamed up with Smithdown Primary to explore fashion upcycling and papermaking, culminating in a student-run fashion show featuring their own upcycled designs.
from the Collaboration Lab with Ecosystem 2, 2025
Artists-in-residence, Andrea Ku, Adam Sadiq/ Ecosystem2, and Niloo Sharifi expanded their practices, gaining confidence, deepening community ties, and stepping into new environments like classrooms and collaborative labs. The programme created space for learning, growth, and meaningful contribution to environmental education.
Together, these artists and young changemakers proved that tackling waste can be inspiring, educational, and joyful.
Contains Joy is a Creative Neighbourhoods project commissioned by Culture Liverpool.
Artist Bios
Andrea Ku
Andrea Ku is an artist and environmentalist focusing on biodiversity and community specialising in the natural history of public spaces. Her practice is led by community-based hands-on activism to collaboratively learn together and build together, enhancing local spaces for people, pollinators and place. She is a beekeeper and gardener who manages 45 beehives in community gardens and spaces throughout Merseyside, delivering nature courses based on the social construct of a beehive. As a volunteer, she also runs ‘The Friends of Sefton Park’ delivering engaging, educational guided walks and talks about the park’s natural and social history.
Andrea runs a canoe club at Ford Lane Garden where she leads nature paddles, litterpicks and invasive species clearing along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. She is inspired by local historic waterways and their impact on people, place and nature.
Ecosystem2
Ecosystem2 (or e2 for short) is a startup and geospatial web design studio. They are a mission and asset locked organisation committed to working on projects that support landscapes, and the people that live on them, to improve the carrying capacity of the Earth for current and future generations of its inhabitants.
Their work specialises in working with geospatial data, providing interactive web interfaces and utilities to manage and present data. We want our work to support learning, positive social and environmental change. For many, geospatial data is a scary term. They aim to make the process of working with this information more accessible and empowering, by engendering forms of ownership and authorship through co-creation.
Kate Laura Draws
Kate Laura Draws’ artwork blends traditional and digital techniques, incorporating watercolours, fine-line pens, Procreate, and printmaking, and is inspired by nature’s colours, textures, and patterns.
Community engagement is central to her practice. She designs and delivers workshops for a broad demographic of people including schools, vulnerable youth, and adult community groups, using art as a tool for self-expression, mental well-being, and connection. She is passionate about making creativity accessible – breaking down societal barriers and hierarchies that often make art feel exclusive.
She is also deeply interested in the intersection of art and environmental education, crafting experiences that encourage a deeper connection to nature and reflection on human impact. She has an academic background in Conservation and Environmental Education that shapes an eco-conscious approach to art-making and workshop facilitation.
Nil00 Sharifi
Nil00 Sharifi is a multidisciplinary artist from Liverpool, working freely across mediums from music to painting. Previous works include Arrival City Liverpool with Goethe Institute and FACT Liverpool, which presented a portrait of Toxteth as a city of immigration, and SOULWEIGHT by DREAMCHORD at Output Gallery, an interactive audiovisual display experimenting with the idea of value. In 2022, nil00 established cl0thes, an upcycling brand proliferated online. Participating in a growing movement of artists creating DIY 1/1 pieces, nil00 creates airbrushed pieces. nil00 is also known for producing and performing heartfelt songs with a dissociative digital aesthetic.
