Curatorial essays on DISPOSABLE

WE WANT MORE 
Brandon Iredale 

We live in a modern world where excess has become the new normal, where the human race is always wanting more and where nothing is ever enough. This is a world where we cannot be satisfied by the present and where we are constantly hungry for what's coming in the future. We are seemingly hard-wired with the constant need for more, whether it be the newest piece of technology or the latest fashion trends and everything in between. Our society is now constantly in a cycle of production to provide us with the very latest offerings. This ideal of constantly wanting more inevitably leads to consequences from such massive levels of consumption. Our constant upgrades, refinement and variation to the world around us inevitably leaves a path of waste in its wake.  

Our waste could be considered an inconvenient byproduct of progress, but the inescapable question is: ‘what really happens to the stuff left behind’? DISPOSABLE can be defined as something “capable of being thrown away after being used or used up”. Until recent years, what has been thrown away has been ignored in our minds. Who really wants to think about waste? Rather, we are always wanting more. It’s as if we are almost controlled by ‘stuff’. The time has come when we can no longer ignore the byproducts of our excesses. Waste has been literally building to levels that cannot be disregarded and cannot be dealt with later. Later is already here. Humanity is well   and truly waking up to the reality that our disposable way of life could mean the end of our way of life.  

There are no simple solutions to the waste we are generating worldwide. Most people desperately want to solve the issue, and with so many now concerned, we are increasingly aware that changes must be made immediately and rapidly. People are thinking up all sorts of inventive and creative ways to reduce waste, to make things last longer, to make things less disposable. Reusing and recycling previously disposable items goes a long way towards helping the issue. But we still have a really long way to go, and currently the dream goal of zero waste remains a dream.  

Will our environment adapt as a consequence of our own wasteful ways or will we see ecological collapse and the death of humanity? Maybe, just maybe, the once infeasible idea of zero waste can become a sustainable reality for our future. 

Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough? 
By Jue Theng Soo 

Consumerism is a vital business model that is often used to promote a country’s social and economic growth, thus it is no surprise that overconsumption and overproduction have now become global issues that must be addressed immediately. It has become a well-known fact that this widespread phenomenon is threatening the environment, depleting natural resources and generating waste at an unimaginable speed.  

The DISPOSABLE season by Science Gallery Melbourne aims to raise awareness of our disposable culture, especially in the younger generation, and I’m extremely proud to be part of this effort. However, we should realise that if we do not address the root of this problem, there’s only so much we can do to lessen the consequences of it. Combating consumerism may be harder than we think, and it may be highly inevitable too due to the positive psychological effects that it brings, especially in an increasingly unhappy society we are facing today.  

We have so much more than what our ancestors had but why are we unhappier now than ever? How much more do we need? Truth is, we already have more than enough and we really need to understand that no amount of physical material can satisfy us if we do not take the effort to fill up the voids in our hearts. Consumerism provides instant gratification and is presented as the fastest and easiest way to feel good in this modern world. It is this very idea that manufacturers thrive on -  that there’s always something better, shinier and trendier for us. But this method of ‘feeling good’ is often short-lived and we would not be able to find contentment and inner peace within ourselves if we do not take the effort to get to know who we really are. How many of us are willing to be vulnerable and accept ourselves as we are? Therefore, I believe many of us would ultimately resort to easy-accessed temptations such as buying goods to relieve our burdens temporarily.  

We would be capable of demonstrating compassion only when we are able to develop a sense of empathy and love towards oneself. I believe a lack of self love and self empathy may be the root of this problem, thus I urge everyone to be brave, accept our pains and to untangle the deep-rooted knots within our hearts. Only then, will we be able to express gratitude for everything that we have on this beautiful planet, would naturally be protective of Mother Nature and would try our best to care for it.  

WHAT CAN BE REIMAGINED? 
By George Goodnow 

 I lived in a 2m x 1.8m room that I built from salvaged materials for the past two years. A small structure that stood in the garden. A collage of materials carefully collected from sites around Melbourne: industrial demolition sites, abandoned houses, hard rubbish, salvage yards, online advertisements. Hard hats, hi vis, throwing MDF boards and the least bent bits of timber into the back of a rusted ute. A man from the site office shouts, ‘Want this old carpet?!’. He knows how much of what he sees around him will go to landfill. A little TLC and time is given to jettisoned materials in order to render them important again, and tell a story.  

My home, a reconstituted structure of objects, was initially an art installation. After that it was planned to be a house for a few chooks but instead I lived in it. Now it is a gallery that sits in a backyard and in the near future it will be a photo booth. After a process of collecting and building, the conversation continues and the full stop (that’s landfill) is avoided. In defiance of the expendable it keeps proving it has purpose, against a backdrop of other objects hurtling towards obsolete. There is no ‘away’, there is only ‘elsewhere’, though all too often out of sight, out of mind. 

When I consider the theme DISPOSABLE, I ask myself, what is of value? How is value afforded, and is value fixed? What can be reconsidered, reimagined and recycled to render the undervalued valuable? My own art practice is often site-specific and deals with transient states and spaces. It regularly takes me to construction sites, spaces due for demolition or renovation, and galleries in flux. I observe processes of taking down and putting up, and contribute with my own processes of installing and deinstalling. As I continue to create artworks I continue to reassess my methods and reflect on how I contribute to waste, pollution and the proliferation of ‘stuff’. How do objects and images get here, and where are they going? Where am I going?  

A friend recently referred to the room I lived in as a chrysalis. A transitional state. A safe space to develop1. There is lichen on the surface of the sun-yellowed fibreglass roof of the ‘chrysalis’. Hairy textured islands of it. A hardy composite organism manufacturing carbohydrates via photosynthesis, producing its own nutrition, and thriving atop a substrate once considered ‘waste’2. How special it is then that this miniature ecosystem and I both called the repurposed assemblage ‘home’.