I Want To Feel

+ The Life of One Man as Found in the Garbage

It Was a Windy Day

The Land Art Generator Initiative

HOT SPOTS

Fire Alley Media Center


The Life of One Man as Found in the Garbage is a collection of hundreds of materials found in the garbage representing the scope of one human life. The artifacts span 1920-1990 and include hundreds of photographs, maps, letters, journal entries that include detailed descriptions of the Jewish Holocaust, children’s scrawl, travel memorabilia, medical notes, etc.—the remains of a lifetime. These treasures generate an anonymous portrait that functions as a cultural mirror, from which the reflection of an average American narrative stares back. Although discovered in the garbage, these objects are anything but trash. They are, in fact, vestiges eternally linking us to humanity. They tell the stories of families, wars, disease, travel, recreation, and social causes: an entire cultural landscape contained within one mound of rubbish. And their presence hints, too, at the missing connective tissue— those in-between moments lost to the garbage, and to us.

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