Thursday, February 28, 2008

You're Trashy!

Today I saw two very interesting things involving trash.

No ... it wasn't the disgusting things my kids throw away in my classroom. No ... it wasn't the LARGE dumpster at our school that sits outside. Yes ... it had to do with Oprah and art museums!

At lunch today, Amy asked us if anyone had seen yesterday's Oprah that talked about Freegans. I hadn't watched it, but had a feeling I had DVRed it. I got home tonight after work and sat down to watch it. It was VERY interesting. Freegans are basically people who are suffering from stickittothemanitis (Thanks School of Rock) and want to make a change about the what they consume, buy and use. In a nutshell, Freegans are "dumpster divers" and are happy to use anything that has already been discarded that they seem fit to use, eat, wear or sit upon.

I'm all for getting some awesome furniture that someone else is getting rid of. I'm happy to think about shopping at consignment shops and thrift stores for certain items. I would like to discard less in my day-to-day life. BUT ... I think I draw the line at going through restaurant and grocery store trash bins and dumpsters for my dinner.

I think the best thing to take away from what I saw these people do today is that as Americans, we throw away WAY TOO MUCH! We are working hard to buy more things that we don't really need. I'll start by giving away what I can instead of trashing and being more conscious of what I actually use and discard.

The next thing was an e-mail my Mom sent me today. I just got a chance to look at it and it went along perfectly with what the freegans were talking about. Chris Jordan is an artist who has a new exhibit called, Running the Numbers - An American Self-Portrait. He has created these LARGER THAN LIFE prints that show what Americans consume and waste and throw away.

I'm sure to truly appreciate them, you need to see them in person and be up close and personal! He has these gigantic sort of abstract prints, but when you get close, you can see that they are made of something that helps to represent the theme of that print. He's a great example. it is called "Building Blocks" and is 16 x 32 feet large. It depicts 9 million wooden ABC blocks that represents the number of children in America with no health insurance coverage in 2007. Scary!

Wide picture to see scale reference to how big the print is compared to humans.

See that "X" in the middle of the print? Here it is zoomed in.
And here you can see how it was really made.

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1 comment:

34th Stater said...

Bless and Release. Another great posting. Think of the paper you're saving by doing this electronically ... and stamps!