Chubby Daniels is a Leicester participatory artist turning waste into art. Recycled art commissions, Trash to Art community workshops, live art and sustainability sessions across Leicester and the Midlands.
Available for commissions, workshops and studio visits: Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6pm
Phone: +44 7899 834432 | Email: chubychris@gmail.com
Why I Create
I used to build with concrete. Now I build with what the world throws away.
I'm a participatory artist in Leicester turning waste into collaborative art: 50+ workshops, 500+ makers, and a world record attempt built by hundreds of hands. Every bottle cap, every nail, every person who shows up proves the same thing: nothing, and no one, is beyond value.
Your support keeps these workshops free and helps people create with purpose, not perfection.
SAT 10TH OCT 2026
Curve, Leicester (Mezzanine), Rutland Street, LE1 1SB | Saturday 10 October 2026 | 12pm to 4pm | Free, drop in, all ages
Part of Curve's Black History Month Community Day. Explore African masquerade traditions, then design and make your own one-of-a-kind mask from reclaimed materials to take home.
FRI 16TH OCT 2026
Curve, Leicester | Friday 16 October 2026 | 7pm | Black History Month Scratch Night
A ten-minute wordless live art performance by Chubby Daniels. Two performers sit on uncomfortable chairs while a waiting-room soundscape plays and a message is revealed one line at a time. Tickets are available on the Curve website.
TUE 20TH OCT 2026
Kala Arts CIC, 6a Frog Island, Leicester LE3 5AG | Tuesday 20 October 2026 | 1pm to 3pm | Ages 4 to 10
A family upcycling workshop with Kala Arts CIC. Children turn thick, circular speaker-wood offcuts into their own dinner time placemats, painting and collaging their mealtime favourites to take home. Tickets from £12.50, with free access places for families who need them.
NOVEMBER 2026
De Montfort University, Leicester | November 2026 (exact date to be announced)
Eighteen 2ft x 2ft panels made from recycled materials by hundreds of hands across Leicester, seventeen of them representing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, come together at DMU for their final assembly and display, as part of the university's climate events running alongside COP.
JAN 2027- SEPT 2027
Building Capacity for Socially Engaged Commissioning
Curatorial development for participatory practice
A nine-month programme of development, January to September 2027, supported by Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice programme.
The programme builds capacity for socially engaged commissioning, moving from delivering individual projects to leading work at city and national scale. It includes mentoring sessions and visits to spaces to learn how socially engaged work is commissioned and curated.
13TH-15TH JAN 2027
LCB Depot, 31 Rutland Street, Leicester LE1 1RE | Wednesday 13 to Friday 15 January 2027 | 10am to 2:30pm
Creativity at the End of Things: three free days of talks and conversation on how artists, makers and organisations work with leftover, discarded and reused materials, with a day each for makers, researchers and policymakers. Co-delivered by LCB Depot and Cuttle CIC.
JULY - NOVEMBER 2026
Many Hands, One Art aims to create a lasting community legacy for Leicester through a large-scale collaborative artwork made entirely from recycled materials. The project provides an inclusive space where anyone can participate, using art as a catalyst to rethink consumption and inspire environmental behaviour change. By engaging 400 to 500 residents across multiple venues, it demonstrates the creative potential of waste and the power of collective action. The completed artwork will be permanently installed in Leicester, serving as an enduring symbol of what the city can achieve together.
MAR 2026- JUNE 2026
Our City, Our Stories is a project commissioned by Leicester Cathedral for the Samworth Gallery and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. It was made in partnership with The Centre Project and The Bridge, working with people experiencing homelessness in the city.
Workshops
26TH NOV 2025 -30TH JAN 2026
the fox
timeless elegance
Trash to Art is a sustainability-focused community art initiative transforming waste into wonder. Running from August to November 2025, the project empowered local residents in Leicester, especially young people and underserved communities, to explore creative expression through recycled materials.
Through a series of free workshops, public installations and a final exhibition, participants learned to turn everyday trash (bottle caps, string, scrap wood and more) into compelling artworks. The project promoted environmental awareness, creative skill-building and community cohesion, demonstrating the powerful intersection of art and sustainability.
Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, and SDG 13 Climate Action), Trash to Art fosters circular creativity, urban inclusion and climate-conscious thinking at grassroots level.
Workshops: August to October 2025 | Final exhibition: October to November 2025 | Location: Leicester
Trash to Art is supported by Arts Council England (ACE) and De Montfort University (DMU).
WORKSHOP PICTURES
2025
WORKSHOP PICTURES
2025
TRASH TO ART EXHIBITION
2025
2025
20TH NOV 2025
3RD-23RD NOV 2025
25TH OCT 2025
30TH AUG-13TH SEPT
7TH - 29TH JUNE 2025
7TH FEB 2025
BRIGHT BEACH
2025
FLOWER
2025
NO LONGER HUMAN
2025
2025
WIND IN THE WILLOW
2025
BOTTLE CAP MOSAIC
2025
GOLD FISH
2025
2025
LILLIES
2025
STRING STAR
2025
PURPLE CLOVER
2025
ROSE
2025
PURPLE STAR
2025
JN CROSS
2025
SUNFLOWER FIELD
2025
BOTTLE CAP HEART
2025
STICK CANVAS
2025
BROWN STAR
2025
RAINBOW SPIRAL
2025
FOUR LEAF FLOWER
2025
BLUE CROSS
2025
PIGGY VEST
2025
PIPE HEART
2025
GOLDEN YODA
2025
SEALLY
2025
THE DANCE-YASMINE
2025
DANCE SOUP -YASMINE
2025
STRING HEART
2025
ROYAL BOWL
2025
GLITTER FISH
2025
Bottlecap flower
2025
THE FOX
2025
THE PENGUINE
2025
MEMENTO TERRA
2025
2022
2024
2024
2022
2023
2022
2022
2023
EXPRESSIONS
2017
2016
2022
2018
2016
JAPA
JOHN
EARTHDAY
2023
COLOURFUL TREES
2024
KING NOT EMPEROR
2025
NIGHT DREAM
2025
DIGITAL ARTS
2024
DIVERSE VISION
2024
leicester sunset
summer walk
summer walk 2
AYELSTONE MORNING
UMUAHIA NIGHT
STEFI
pencil drawing
LION KING
JOURNEY WABH
TPM
pencil drawing
I’m Chubby Daniels, a Leicester-based Creative Producer, Visual Artist and Participatory Artist working at the intersection of art, sustainability and community.
My practice brings together creative strategy, community engagement and circular economy thinking. I develop creative projects that turn ideas into action, bring people together and create new ways of thinking about waste, place and identity. As a Sustainability Strategist and Circular Economy Practitioner, I use creative approaches to help organisations and communities explore environmental challenges in practical and engaging ways.
My artistic practice is rooted in transformation. Working with reclaimed and recycled materials such as wire, nails, string, bottle caps and scrap wood, I create contemporary artworks that explore identity, resilience, memory and our relationship with waste. The materials carry history before I touch them, and that history becomes part of the work.
As a Creative Producer, I develop and deliver projects from concept through to participation, partnerships and public presentation. My work often brings together artists, communities, organisations and spaces around a shared idea. I am particularly interested in overlooked stories and the people whose experiences are often left out of the conversation.
Through Trash to Art, I have delivered 50+ workshops with more than 500 participants across Leicester, using creative activity to explore waste, sustainability and self-expression. The programme has been supported by Arts Council England and De Montfort University and featured by BBC Radio Leicester and CIWM Circular Online.
I am the founder and director of Cuttle CIC, where I bring together my experience in creative production, participatory practice and sustainability to develop projects with social and environmental impact. I am also the founder of the Midlands Circular Artists Network (MCAN), connecting artists working with circular materials and practices.
My work has been exhibited across Nigeria and the UK, including at Orisun Art Gallery, Art Addiction, LCB Depot, the Enfield Community Art Exhibition and Leicester’s People’s Exhibition. In 2026, I received the Crucible Impact Award from De Montfort University.
I hold an MSc in Architecture and Sustainability (Merit) from De Montfort University, am Carbon Literacy certified, and am a Member of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) and the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals (ISEP).
At the heart of my work is a simple belief:
Waste is not worthless, and people are not invisible.
I use art, creative strategy and community engagement to explore what happens when we look again at the materials we discard, the places we inhabit and the stories that are too often overlooked.
