Other people’s trash enabled Thomas Dambo to build more than 150 giant trolls around the globe, making him one of the world’s leading recycle artists today.
Trolls are depicted in Norse mythology as dangerous supernatural beings. They come in different shapes and sizes — from giant to dwarf and grotesque to human-like. They have large noses and, sometimes, multiple heads or a single eye. They live to bring trouble to humans — kidnapping women and children, with naughty kids as their favorite snack.
They are starkly different from the Troll dolls many millennials and Gen X adored. Unlike the perky, kid-friendly humanoids, the trolls in Norse folklore don’t have bright-colored hair nor can they groove to Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling!
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Despite being greatly feared by humans, these menacing troublemakers have drawn many people closer to nature and opened their eyes to the beauty of upcycling over the last decade. That is, thanks to “garbage artist” Thomas Dambo, who has built over 150 of these unique giant sculptures that have been attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists worldwide since 2015.
Dambo creates his trolls from recycled materials, including scrap wood, old pallets, twigs, and debris. Since building his first sculpture in the series, called Big Boss Bertel in Copenhagen in 2015, the Danish artist says he only uses “100 percent recycled materials, with no chemicals or whatsoever in it.”
He told CBS News that these trolls are not made to terrify but to teach everyone an important lesson on our ever-growing pile of trash. “Everything that I do is showing people that trash can have value,” he said. “Trash doesn’t have to be a negative thing that’s suffocating our world. They can be a beautiful thing that we can build our coming world with.”
Meanwhile, he described the collection in an interview with USA Today as “an advertising campaign for trash.” He elaborated, “I want trash to be the fashion, I want it to be cool, because if it was cool then we would be less wasteful.”
For the 44-year-old artist, a mountain of scraps is “a dream come true,” more like a “regular toy store.” He uses about five tons of scrap wood for each troll, with discarded shipping packs as his favorite. And everywhere he goes, he enlists an army of volunteers to help collect them. A dozen employees, meanwhile, assist him in creating the huge but cute monsters.
These sculptures can be found in 17 countries around the globe, and many of them were commissioned by various institutions. Among his latest — and his biggest by far — is a set of five trolls and other quirky giant sculptures titled “Alexa’s Elixir.” It was commissioned by the Detroit Lakes nonprofit organization Project 412 and was constructed across Northern Minnesota, USA, last June.
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‘Alexa’s Elixir’ and ‘Guardians of the Seed’
Like some of Dambo’s commissioned projects, Alexa’s Elixir invites tourists and locals into a treasure hunt across the town. The story begins with the troll named Alexa cooking a cauldron but couldn’t finish it because she lacks several ingredients. Tourists must then look for the other trolls — Jacob Everear, Barefoot Frida, Long Leif, and Ronny Funny Face — who will help Alexa gather the needed ingredients for her dish. Adding to the fun is the giant Golden Rabbit to whom the trolls and tourists can offer the ingredients for good luck.
Alexa’s Elixir is just one of the many reasons why Dambo’s trolls can be considered true masterpieces. Not only are they visually stunning, but the artist says that each one has its own story. And when it comes to their exact locations, the artist said that he would sometimes leave only a few clues to keep tourists interested and wanting more. It is in that, he says, that the trolls show their true magic, luring us humans into where they are, like the woods “where there’s just the wind and whispers of nature.”
This idea has also led Project 412 to take Dambo’s work to Minnesota. The organization’s director, Amy Stearns, said that the artist’s trolls are not only captivating, but they can also draw tourists to their small town. It happened when the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens teamed up with the artist in 2021, and Project 412 is expecting the same thing now.
Dambo’s project with the Maine institution, titled “Guardians of the Seed,” featured five trolls “protecting” its native trees. According to the park’s CEO and President Gretchen Ostherr, visits to the destination tripled since Dambo installed them three years ago. She told USA Today that visits increased from 100,000 in 2019 to 340,000 in 2024. This is not just because tourism in Maine grew in general, but because Dambo’s trolls have “the ability to reach new audiences.”
The institution collaborated with Dambo after seeing the impact of his work on botanical gardens in Illinois and Kentucky. The parks’ leaders told Ostherr that the trolls increased the number of their visitors greatly and they remained high even after they were dismantled.
But more than enjoying the sight of his trolls or delighting in their stories, Dambo hopes that all of its viewers would appreciate how they were made from trash and the environments they are in. “It’s a little fairytale about a troll but if you look deeper, it’s a story about humans and recycling and how we care for the world,” he said. “I don’t want to just make entertainment. I want to make ‘edu-tainment.’”
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Childhood dream fulfilled
Dambo is considered one of the world’s leading recycle artists for his sustainable art installations, most notably his giant trolls. It’s a feat that stems back to his childhood days when he had no way to buy toys and would instead make them from other people’s junk.
At that time, the young Dambo would sneak things from the local trash and make something out of them. He said he’s always had an interest in what other people throw away and how he might repurpose them.
Like this one time when Dambo’s dad built him a fort out of scrap wood when he was in his preteens. Instead of wanting to play with it, Dambo’s reaction was wanting to make one of his own. So in the next five years, the artist, along with his friends, built an extensive fort that his mother would describe as a “castle.”
“You can build anything out of anything if you’re just creative,” Dambo told CBS News. He focused particularly on trolls in the last decade, as it is also believed that trolls have always been “protectors of our forests.”
He hopes that creating them with materials that used to be forests themselves would send a powerful message to their viewers. “I think it’s good to remind people that there is soil and sun and water and trees and that’s a big joy for me to give that to people,” the artist said.
Dambo offers viewers and explorers a map of his trolls’ locations on his website. The list includes US state — from Jackson Hole to Wyoming — to the forests near South Korea’s Demilitarized Zone. Nearest to the Philippines is the Palawan Beach in Singapore.
The island features Dambo’s four giant sculptures in a project dubbed “Explorers of Sentosa.” It was commissioned by the Sentosa Development Corporation to create a quest that would encourage tourists to discover hidden parts of the beach while reflecting on how we can take care of nature and manage our waste better.
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