Five facts about me.
1. I have been in the press of many famous newspapers.
2. Many artists have cooperated with me.
3. I have been associated with the collections of major museums.
4, You will see me in different areas, such as fashion magazines.
5, You can treat me as a resource.
So, this is me… (a picture of a piece of junk). Settle down for a moment, the five pieces of information mentioned above are all true, this is me on the front page of the news, this is me in the gallery, this is my family at the British Museum, this is me looking exquisite in a fashion magazine (a big puzzle),.
Only: I don’t always appear in a positive light.
I’ve been featured in news magazines:…. The threat of plastic to marine life. The economic loss. The inability to be recycled efficiently.
Does this make me seem like a worthless and harmful being? But what if instead of being discarded so quickly and going straight into the bin, I was used in a different way?
Fashion designer Alexandra sipa sourced discarded cables from a London recycling centre, and use exquisite technique to get the wires mimic the softness of traditional lace. She finished the garments to a luxury standard, wearable and look beautiful. Her collection tackles one of the fastest-growing sources of waste in electronic waste, reaching 50 million tons in 2020, This usage of discarded cables has brought attention of great magazines and brands to her work. (ins Magazine)
Here, me as the discarded wire being moved from the waste station to the human body, from being abandoned to being treated as a precious luxury, from an environmental issue to a fashion topic. This phenomenon seems to influence the public’s attitude towards me. At least people will start to take the time to answer the question in their minds: what is the waste doing here? One could argue that people are becoming more patient in recognising so-called waste.
So what is waste? Is it an annoying environmental problem that cannot be dealt with or is it an opportunity to create new inventions? Whether I am helpful or harmful is not because of myself. I am the result of your behaviour.
(Definition of waste in the oxford dictionary, in addition to referring to materials that are no longer needed and are thrown away， it also refers to the act of using something in a careless or unnecessary way, causing it to be lost or destroyed.)
Am I meaningless if I am considered as without-use? For whom I am useless? Does everyone else agree? In which values I am meaningless, practical values, cultural or emotional values? Am I always perceived as useless or just temporarily useless? Am I considered useless due to where we appear? So. What do I mean to you?
An artist, Song Dong, gives us his answer, who was born in the same year Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution began in China. family whose limited resources during the revolution required them to reuse objects and as he’s aid ‘make something out of nothing’. In his work Waste Not, cooperating with his mother, me, as household objects, are organised and displayed without any transformation. For Song Dong and her mother, I reflects their living conditions, their family background and their cultural environment. I have become a portrait of his family.
Instead of being thrown away ,as the family became richer,me, the mother’s dated everyday objects have been kept and exhibited. Conveying Song Dong’s respect for the old Chinese elders’ philosophy of living a materially frugal life.
In addition to this, I have another identity, that of his father’s relics. Song Dong hopes this process of sorting and presenting us in gallery space will help him and his mother to get over the haze of his father’s death, which he later described in an interview as having made a significant difference to their psychological state. In this way, dealing with me waste became a form of therapy.
Futhermore, me as ‘Private waste’ also bring social influence, where provoking public reflections on attitudes towards waste, especially in an increasingly commercialised and globalised world, when rapid replacement and discarding has become the mainstream. From private household to public gallery, the scenes in which I am placed seem to have an impact on people judging my value.
But if, for you, I still appear as useless and preserving me is a waste of your expensive living space. Could you consider using me for a different purpose? If I’m an unwanted drawing paper, for example, I can be used as sketch paper, wrapping paper, a rag, then even as material for a video, an object to be painted, a photographic subject, and if you post this work online and received tons of likes, money received, then don’t I have a practical value again?
It seems that how I am treated by you determines what value I have, in other words, what value you think I have is how I will be treated. Waste is not an end, it can be a beginning. Archaeology, for example, uses me as a starting point and evidence for its research. The subject is digging waste left by humans in the past, because overtime, I am evidence of history.I can be seen as a representation of lifes and events that have ended in the past, However, for people at present, I am the beginning of knowing their history, of knowing themselves. My contribution to this is enormous.
So what do I mean to you? Am I always useless? In any scenario? How many ways can I get along with you?
I belong to you, my presence proves your existence, so please tell me,what am I?