DEvalue/REvalue 
| home | location | process | recommodify |
  
“DEvalue / REvalue” investigates and intervenes the patterns of discarding solid waste from the Bronx, New York. Western economies are designed and manufactured based on planned obsolescence, thus plastic lighters, pens, various containers for motor oil, liquid refreshments, shampoo bottles, CDs, shards of unidentifiable plastics & metals, clothing, paper and advertisements from popular culture are used and discarded as they fall out of fashion, become scarred, old and used up or outmoded. Yet what is left behind are materials that do not just “go away” once discarded. The outcome of “DEvalue / REvalue” is a form of reclamation, an ironic twist constructed through a process of cleansing, marking and notating the site and date that the rubbish was found. This process maps the consumer’s path traversed through the environment where the materials were discarded, then collected.

After these materials have been processed, they will be repackaged and assigned a new value as artifacts or fragments of modern culture typified by the Bronx. I put into question the relationship between consumption, production, and our place we call home, the work place and places we choose to use for recreation. Through the juxtaposition of the street scene and found garbage, I create a connection between our destinations and the places through which we transit.

I consider myself to be a trans-media artist or generalist. Regardless of the media, photography, video, sound or installation/performance, the underlying concerns address the dichotomy of desire and discard within material culture. The territories I explore are the boundaries of urban and suburban culture through the act of collecting debris, sound and images from the consumed and littered landscape around the globe. By these means, I convert systems of cultural iconography via media and technology into an analytical and satirical inter-mediated narrative.
 
Roll over the map area above to reveal the areas in the Bronx that rubbish was collected. Begining at the left hand side of the map illustrates the context of the Bronx in relation to the US. As you roll to the right you can zooms in to more detail including a tracing of our path December 18. The first walk collection was in the John F. Kennedy High School area. We then took a bus up to 246th Street and Henry Hudson Parkway and continued collecting until we arrived at Wave Hill. After lunch we began processing the rubbish found.

 

inportant people:
opens, March 6, 2004
Jennifer McGregor, curator
REduce/REuse/REexamine
Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY
Bill Elmore, Principal,
Gateway Academy for Science, Mathematics and Research
students, John F. Kennedy HS
Paula Morvay, Wave Hill Education