Refuse
Photographic exploration and objects collection, 2015
"Refuse" is a photographic journey into the wastes of a small city. Garketch made this adventure possible during a 6 months residency, just near a dumping ground. Every visit was an exploration in what our society expels and a wonder for the artist's eye, straying into an infinite panel of colors and shapes, renewing itself every day.
Discovering what people threw away was speaking truth about the wonderful circle of life of the objects. Like the death of the living, the death of the object is a taboo. The dumping ground is a place where former living beings and objects share the same fate.
While the situation was telling the vanity of the whole society, some details revealed the absurdity of individual existence too. Depending on the day, treasures could be found either freshly dumped or half-buried half-burnt. The kid’s drawings and toys, the family dog, food directly from the local store, family pictures, lots of batteries and plastic caps collected for years before realizing recycling is useless because we all die eventually, empty bags of antibiotic-nutrients from the near pig farm, sick pigs turned blue, expired food directly from the store, plastic products, video and audio archives ...
A selection of remains from the trash was gathered, in addition to the photographic collection. Some of them were transformed for other projects.
