The cliche is that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” but the author of that phrase probably never realized how strangely true it could turn out to be.

In today’s world of weird and amazing art some of the most compelling and creative works have been born out of the simplest and most abundant of materials: garbage. These seven trash-obsessed artists may have had a similar starting point but have managed to create an inspiring variety of art from abandoned refuse.

haunting ‘trash people’ have graced the streets of many of the world’s most major cities … silently open to interpretation as they travel the world and sit everywhere from the parks of New York City to the Great Wall of China. It took Schult 6 months and 30 assistants to create these strange sculptures from crushed cans, computer parts and virtually anything else he could appropriate to assemble them.