The Wastemakers on Cornucopia Street

Collage book series and props in The Wastemakers on Cornucopia Street [Newhaven and Lethaby] and Wastework [Winchester]

Taking its title from Vance Packard’s pioneering book ‘The Waste Makers’ from the 1960’s, which exposes the demise of the environment through the growth of disposable consumer goods, the exhibition asks us to think about themes around waste and how we might interpret, rework and re-examine them.

How do we arrive at waste? Is it matter out of place? What is the difference between dirt and waste? And what is digital waste? Searching for new perspectives on this subject brings a set of diverse artists together to discuss their work in relation to waste.

I have been working on these books for the past decade or so. Making and re-making them is a daily practice, cutting and folding in junk mail, flyers, lecture notes, stuff that gets shoved through the letter box, overwritten with spam and back-chat from internet relay channels. Here they are shown with props and weights sewn from scrap fabric dyed with food waste over lockdown.

WASTEWORK is the third and final iteration of the exhibition which began as The Waste Makers on Cornucopia Street at Newhaven ArtSpace in 2022 before travelling to The Lethaby Gallery at Central Saint Martins, London. All three exhibitions explore waste and how we might interpret, rework and re-examine it. How do we arrive at waste? Is it matter out of place? What is the difference between dirt and waste? And what might digital waste be? Focusing on restoration and rehabilitation the show presents diverse artworks from North America, India and the UK, representing the globalised nature of waste. The work from Compound 13 lab, for example, has been made inside the informal settlement of Dharavi, Mumbai, which recycles 80% of Mumbai's plastic. Curated by Ian Dawson, the exhibition continues to accrue new works and takes on new configurations in each space exploring how longstanding artistic practices such as collage and assemblage can glean new perspectives on waste-studies and the politics of disposability.