Turning trash into treasure

2026-03-18 - 01:04

leeanna.maharaj@guardian.co.tt For Damian Agostini, poui tree branches, remnants of Carnival costumes and even forks from nearby restaurants are items he recycles into art at the Queen’s Park Savannah. The 64-year-old, who was born in T&T and moved to Canada at the age of six, originally worked with his father installing ice rinks in home backyards. Agostini’s interest in creating these particular sculptures started roughly 12 years ago, when he was in T&T for his grandmother’s funeral. “I made a couple reindeer for this young girl at Nelson Mandela Park. We were gonna put the two reindeer, once I finished, in her trunk, and we placed them on the ground and a car pulled up and a couple people asked if we wanted to sell them. We didn’t at first, and then they said they’re willing to pay a hundred USD each. At that point we sold them. I was retired then and I figured there’d be something to do, and I really haven’t turned back since,” Agostini reminisced. Now retired, Agostini still does work in Canada and visits T&T yearly. “I was actually doing some work in Toronto by Humber Bay, and I became their local artist. But my business card still says Savannah artist because I like to do themes based on the Savannah and based on Africa, like the gazelles, horses, lions and giraffes. All those things are animals that I like to create,” he shared. Most of Agostini’s work in Trinidad can be found in the Queen’s Park Savannah, on Wrightson Road and in parts of Curepe. He noted that his pieces are heavily dependent on the environment. “For my type of art, I tend to just pick up the wood that I find on the spot and create it immediately. I prefer driftwood, which is pieces of wood found by the beach, because they’ve already been treated for insects. So no bugs are going to be found in them, as they’ve been sanded and the water has worked them, so they’re nice and smooth. I also tend to use more fresh-cut wood like poui and salmon. In a lot of the parks, the trees were trimmed back for Carnival, so there was an abundance of wood for me to create stuff with. So I usually walk with my tools and if I see something I bring it to life immediately, wherever it is,” Agostini explained. At the Queen’s Park Savannah on Maraval Road, several of Agostini’s creations sit watching passersby and motorists. Most of them are crafted after animals. The tallest is a horse, which Agostini calls Damian Targaryen. “I wanted the horse to look like a Targaryen war horse. So instead of Daemon Targaryen it’s called Damian’s Targaryen war horse, and that’s why I painted him black and I put on some silver. I used some Carnival costumes that I saw [in the QPS], and feathers and beads. I actually went to a restaurant and I asked him if I could take the forks and the spoons for my piece and they gave it to me,” said Agostini. Among the sculptures are a frog, iguana, hawk, reindeer and a man’s face. However, his latest piece stands tall in Mount Irvine, Tobago. Agostini was speaking to Guardian Media while building that horse, named Lightning, near the beach. “I’m in my glory because everything is right here for me to work with,” Agostini said, referring to a pile of branches near the shore. He noted that this wasn’t the first time he had created pieces in Tobago. “In Tobago I came back a couple days ago and my pieces are still standing up down by Pigeon Point, by Swallows, so that brings a smile to my face actually,” he smiled. However, Agostini’s work has faced some criticism. In 2017, then Port-of-Spain mayor Joel Martinez had his sculptures removed from around the Savannah without notifying him. Eventually, Martinez apologised, returned the pieces, and later reports indicate that he compensated Agostini. Even while Agostini was building in Mount Irvine, a passerby confronted him and told him the pieces of wood were meant for garbage collection. Yet Agostini remains unbothered. “I’ve come to the point now where it’s kind of like sandpaper. Initially it really hurts, but in the end they kind of rub me smoother. All these encounters that I have that are negative tend to open up a lot more positive doors than you would believe,” Agostini noted. Agostini added: “When I set up my work it seems to draw people of all races and religions, and they’re fascinated and inquisitive, but it stirs something. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do? That’s what I want to share and I would love to teach a younger generation and show them how to work this craft.”