Project 90:Song Dong is a work currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art. The installation, named Waste Not, consists of the complete contents of the home of the artist's mother. All the items were amassed over fifty years, years during which the concept of "waste not" was a prerequisite for survival in China.
When my friend and I viewed the installation from above, it looked like a scene from a market. We wondered, "What is that?"
Up close, I could determine very quickly what I would throw away (egg cartons, used-up tubes of toothpaste, the net that encircles Asian pears and more). However, the ball of string immediately reminded me of my Grandma Ohm. She always saved string. We tied the string end to end and wound it into a ball. When I saw the room full of shopping bags from department stores, I laughed. I save some of those, too. I call it recycling!
My friend, Elvira, had a visceral response to the exhibition. "It makes me itch," she observed.
As I talked about this installation with another friend, she told me about a friend of hers who decorated a wall of her home with designer bags from stores no longer in existence. That friend looked at bags and saw a wall decoration. Song Dong looked at the contents of his mother's house and ended up in MOMA.
One person's junk/waste is another's treasure--even art. It all depends on imagination, creativity and/or point of view.
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