I collect rubbish - an investigation into consumerism and waste

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Copyright: Obergfell, Lena
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Abstract
This research project examines the effects of consumer culture and its relationship to waste. I argue that consumer culture and its obsession with economic growth results in unhealthy social structures that are reflected in how materialistic cultures deal with its waste. Rubbish is an unacknowledged outcome that reflects the inner void consumers are trying to fill with through buying more stuff . I examine economic, sociological and psychological research to show how wellbeing is influenced by materialism. My argument is supported by Hamilton and Denniss research about physiological and physiological health within consumer culture, examined through a filter of waste and validated by the earlier critique by Thorstein Veblen. The aim is not to provide a complete history of consumer culture nor am I attempting to explain industrialised cultures history of waste. Rather my research examines the paradoxes and absurd moments within this culture. The investigation of the theoretical framing of my artwork situates it in historical art movements and contemporary art, identifying relevant artists and their works in relationship to waste and consumer culture. This serves as background to my video performances where a signature yellow raincoat signals protection from and an engagement with the abject and functions as a device to cover my body, to distinguish it from the prevailing objectification of women in consumer culture, and a large scale kinetic installation using discarded objects that are re-valued and transformed into art. The paper also reviews my participation in the ongoing project Wasteland Twinning. I am an ambassador in an international collaborative network that looks at the discourse around wastelands, subverting the mainstream idea of Twin Cities. My aim is to demonstrate the relationship of waste to urban wastelands, that is, patches of land in limbo that await or have escaped development as another aspect of the dislocation of waste in consumer society. The dislocations of waste from societies consciousness are made obvious in my performances and installations, where I reference my own dislocation as a migrant, and deploy rubbish as both the materiality of precious artworks, and metaphors for consumer society.
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Author(s)
Obergfell, Lena
Supervisor(s)
Ely, Bonita
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Publication Year
2014
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
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