While UK artist Damian Hirst relies on little human helpers to assist him in creating his well-known dot artworks, Canadian multi-media artist Aganetha Dyck employ bees to create organic art.

Aganetha has been working with honeybees to create sculptures and drawings for over 20 years, the result being swirling honey comb sculptures and sweet drawings. Through her work, Aganetha - who is interested in environmental issues, specifically the power of the small - addresses language and communication between humans and other species, particularly bees.

Her research also asks questions about the ramifications all living beings would experience should honeybees disappear from the earth.

What do you think, is it the bee's knees?

We've previously written about 'reverse graffiti' and 'living billboards', and we're familiar with 'guerilla gardening' and 'knit graffiti' but have you heard of moss graffiti? The latest in street art projects aiming to enrich derelict urban spaces is cleverly named Mossenger and is the brainchild of London-based artist Anna Garforth.

Anna's project uses biodegradable ingredients to attach moss letters to walls to spell out poems. How wonderful isn't that? The poem you can see on these pictures are by Eleanor Stevens and will be featured in four parts - each sentence is to be displayed somewhere in London.

Have you spotted any other green street art projects where you live?
If you see Anna's work when you're out and about in London tweet us @Hippyshopper as we'd love to see more!

(via Environmental Graffiti)

The last few decades have been dominated by urbanisation, digitalisation and an admiration for consumption. These days, you'll find a growing number of counter-movements springing up that advocating for a more sustainable and responsible way of dealing with our environment and bringing nature back to our cities.

My Green City - Back to Nature with Attitude and Style (Gestalten, £35.00) is a compilation of the ideas and projects from around the world that are promoting a more environmentally friendly lifestyle - from urban farming initiatives and architectural visions that are changing our cities, to furniture and other everyday objects that can make our streets and homes greener.

Among the many inspirational projects included in this book, some of our favourites are: Vacant Lot allotment garden by What if: projects (Shoreditch, London May 2007) which took use of vacant and unloved city spaces and turned them into temporary allotment gardens; the Ann Demeulemeester shop in Seoul, Korea by Mass Studies which is covered in grass on the exterior surfaces; the many varieties of seed bombs - the munitions of guerrilla gardeners in the fight against the neglect of public spaces. In fact, there are far too many great eco-friendly ideas to mention!

We liked the book so much that we have teamed up with Gestalten to give one lucky Hippyshopper reader the chance to add 'My Green City' to their book collection.

TO ENTER

To enter the competition simply Like Hippyshopper's Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/Hippyshopper and leave us a comment below telling us which city in the world you think is greenest and why. We'll pick the winner based on our favourite message, so don't be shy!

COMPETITION CONDITIONS

- Competition closes on Friday 27th May 2011 at 23:59.

- Only Hippyshopper Facebook page fans will be eligible to win the prize.

It's always great to come across unusual and inspiring green art projects. Have you ever heard of "reverse graffiti"? Neither had we until recently.

Reverse graffiti is when you take filthy, moss covered surfaces and wipe away the dirt to create amazing green artworks.

UK artist Paul Curtis, or Moose as he calls himself, is a reverse graffiti artist. It involves no paint. No defacing. Moose makes his art by cleaning; removing the evils of dirt and pollution by wiping it away.

Below are a few examples of Moose's work. Looking at makes us want to invest in some cloths and a bucket to fill with water and head out in the London streets.

Environmental artist Ha Schult has installed his army of one thousand life sized trash people in the Arctic at Longyearbyen, Svalbard.

The German artist has travelled the world with his sculptures made of discarded materials since 1996 and has been below the La Défense arch in Paris, in the aptly named Piazza del Popolo (the people's square) in Rome, by the pyramids of Giza and now the freezing conditions of the Arctic.

Images: top - www.lokalstyre.no / all others www.haschult.de

Old milk cartons, used party poppers and empty drinks cans sound to me like a list of things to rinse, sort and put in the correctly coloured bins with no thought to how they might be reincarnated.

Well, apparently there is an art to recycling, and these objects have been used to make some the most interesting and individual art around. Recycled art tends to be commission based because of its unique nature, and is the perfect way to be green whilst getting your hands on a one-off work of art. See our gallery to discover recycling in a new light, and to find out the true meaning of one man's trash being another man's treasure...

CLICK THE IMAGE TO START THE GALLERY

Michael Jackson was always a big fan of 'healing the world' so it may not come as a big surprise to hear that that the singer was on the verge of releasing a new song that warned about climate change before his sad death on Friday.

The as yet unnamed song, which the singer was said to have been composing two days before his death, is just part of a library of 'secret tunes', now set to be released posthumously.

If you're half the hoarder of junk that I am, you'll be excited to hear about a event coming up in London's Seven Dials next week. From the 22nd to the 29th of May, arts organisation Pollocks will be hosting a live art installation where they'll turn your old rubbish into works of art!

Read on for details

I don't think I'll ever tire of clever and creative re-use ideas, and there are plenty of those to be found in the work of Annabeth Orton aka Glittermouse, who works with reused glass and tin to bring you richly decorated items which brighten and enhance interiors in a sustainably aware way.

Mouse, a selection of whose work you can see in the image above, is so committed to the idea of reusing discarded items that she's even been known to 'rescue' items such as discarded bottles and glasses from the streets in the aftermath of a Saturday night!

Read on over the jump to find out more about Glittermouse's work

Related: The art of upcycling: junky jewellery for spring | Remarkable recycled art by Robert Bradford

How to look good naked is coming back to our screens later on in the year, so get ready for a fresh crop of 'bangers', bums, thighs and tummies - all enjoying their moment in the limelight thanks to the help and encouragement of stylist Gok Wan.

In the same spirit as many of his fashion contemporaries, Gok is coming over all green at the moment, and would love the chance to work his magic on a clean-living, eco counscious individual who's looking for a body confidence makeover.

Interested? Details on how to apply are after the jump.

On Sunday 15th March participating Vue cinemas across the country will be screening The Age of Stupid; a post-apocalyptic tale set in 2055, after the world has been devastated by climate change.

Kicking off at 5:30pm, there will be a live satellite feed from the green carpet in London's Leicester Square where the film will be shown in a solar cinema tent. Oscar nominated Pete Postlethwaite, who stars in The Age of Stupid, will be arriving by a special solar car provided by Cambridge University's Eco Racing Team. Vue customers will be shown the arrivals as well as a post-film Q&A session, creating a "People's Premiere" experience. The event will also support "Not Stupid"; a campaign to build awareness around climate change that has been established by the film's director Franny Armstrong.

Banksy's latest exhibit is interesting to me because in many ways I think all it's doing is showing in graphical form how many vegetarians already see the world. Set out like a quaint, oldy worldy pet shop, it explores how we have become so used to using animals for food, clothing and as pets that we forget about their true origins.

Follow the jump to find out what's inside...

Knowing what to do with household waste is not always obvious; once you've recycled all your paper, donated all your unwanted clothes to charity and composted all the food you can possibly cram into a small bokashi bin, you're into the more rocky territory of electricals, furniture and plastics.

If that's all got you confused, sustainable living expert Tracey Smith can help with her new 'book of rubbish ideas', in which she takes you through each and every room in your house and garden with valuable tips on reducing household waste. Available from 25th September, the book will be a great addition to any eco house. Visit Tracey's blog to find out how to get a special half price discount on the book and bag a copy for just £3.50.

Related: Interview: My Zero Waste's Mrs. Green speaks to Hippyshopper

If it sometimes feels like you can't do diddly squat about pollution in the world at large, here's a simple and attractive way to clean up the air in your own home: house plants.

Once you've got rid of as many other common toxins at home (including 'traditional' cleaning products like bleach and other harsh chemicals, air fresheners and so on) it's a good time to introduce plants, which will keep the air as pollution-free as possible. A new book called 'How to grow fresh air' explains all about how plants purify the air, and even recommends which are the best in terms of removing pollutants from the air. Read on for some suggestions from the book...

[Via Little Green Blog]

In an age of hybrid sports cars, chichi organic delis and eco-chic fashion, it's easy to get into the mindset that being green is a luxury that only a privilidged few can enjoy.

But now the term 'credit crunch' has made it into the OED, we're all starting to take this money-saving lark a bit more seriously -- and it's more important than ever to remember that before it was cool to go green, people did so at very little expense. Now, a new book from Friends of the Earth aims to bring us all back down to earth...

Related: Is the credit crunch making you less green?