Gleaning
My studio practice began with an interesting compulsion: I would walk the coastal paths near where I lived, pick up pieces of trash and plastic debris I found along the way, and bring them home.
However, as I continued to pick up and collect whatever I found along the shore, I started to feel more like a consumer than an ecowarrior. Picking up these objects started to give me the same feeling as going shopping. I was hunting, gathering, and bringing objects home. I felt the desire to accumulate.
Gleaning is one way to pay attention to what’s around us and to ourselves.
I continue to reflect on why we keep consuming these objects that we end up throwing away? For me, this reaction confronts an understanding of objects, value, and waste. What do objects mean to us? What do we value about them? What do we throw away?
