Discard Studies
The new multidisciplinary field of discard studies considers definitions of, attitudes toward, behaviors around, and materialities of waste, broadly defined. This blog is meant as an online gathering place for scholars, activists, environmentalists, students, artists, planners, and anyone else whose work touches on themes relevant to the study of discard.
Discard practices involve many elements, including these:
- social customs
- labor arrangements
- resource stocks and flows
- economic relationships
- cultural assumptions
- public health controversies
- political histories
- geographies and circulation
Attitudes about discards as things and discarding as a practice are informed by deeply held and sometimes contradictory notions of value, worthlessness, disgust, and the boundaries of the self, as well as material factors and practical logistics.
Discard studies as a field in its own right has rich potential, drawing upon but going beyond approaches to waste undertaken in disciplines of cultural anthropology, economics, sociology, archaeology, geography, history, and environmental studies, to name a few.
A growing number of researchers from all of these disciplines are asking questions about waste, not just as an ecological problem, but as a process, as a category of rejected material goods, as a mentality, as a judgment, as an infrastructural and economic challenge, as a political risk, a site for power struggles and as a source of creativity.
You can follow The Discard Studies Blog on Facebook here.
As one who struggles with holding on, I look forward to learning about the creativity of letting go.
Posted by Mae Benoit | August 30, 2010, 1:26 pmHi, this is Maite Zubiaurre, Professor at UCLA and an admirer of “Discard Studies.” I am writing a book called “Talking Trash” on the cultural representation of garbage, and would like to interview you on the subject. Let me know if this would be feasible.
Best wishes,
Maite Zubiaurre
Posted by Maite Zubiaurre | January 29, 2011, 7:36 pmFor twelve years, we have been visiting 1000 yards of Kehoe Beach in the Point Reyes National Sea Shore. We have rambled this one remote beach hundreds of times to gather plastic debris washing out of the Pacific Ocean. By carefully collecting and “curating” the bits of plastic, we fashion it into works of art— art that matter-of-factly shows, with minimal artifice, the material as it is. The viewer is often surprised that this colorful stuff is the thermoplastic junk of our throwaway culture. As we have deepened our practice we’ve found, like paleontologists, each bit of what we find opens into a pinpoint look at the whole of human culture. Each bit has a story to tell.
We’ve had over 40 exhibitions of our work ranging from the SFMOMA to the US Embassy in the Republic of Georgia. Although our work speaks about a real environmental problem, art is the central theme. This multifaceted exploration is also a two-part love story. The love of a place in a magnificent national park just 25 miles from San Francisco, a major American megalopolis. And, this beach is the sight of our first date opening to an ongoing marriage of two souls dedicated to the notion that beauty can contribute to righting a world out of balance.
http://www.beachplastic.com
http://www.plasticforever.blogspot.com
http://vimeo.com/18672227
Posted by Judith Selby Lang | March 6, 2011, 10:46 amThanks so much for sharing your work with us, Judith! The art is beautiful, even while the source (the medium?) is so disturbing. I’ll add your website to our links section. — Robin
Posted by Robin Nagle | March 6, 2011, 10:57 amThank you so much for making this list of artists working in discard studies. It’s a wonderful resource and I’m so happy to be on it! Could you change the spelling of my name from Kristina to Christina? Thank you so much!
Christina Freeman,
Plums for Trash
Posted by Christina Freeman | April 23, 2012, 2:42 am