Archive for 57 People is related to an ongoing series of projects that begin with a material interest in post-consumer recycled (reprocessed) plastics. This material is derived from a wide number of post-consumer sources and therefore is linked to collective patterns of over-consumption and general misuse of petrochemical resources. The project highlights a broadly communal sense of waste production. A viewer would be correct in speculating that some part of their own behavior as a consumer could have directly contributed to the polymer molecules embedded in this sculpture. Here, recycling is not looked at as a solution, but as a containment strategy–a response–to a system of material exploitation that is fundamentally flawed and destructive. The internal measure of the piece--annual average plastic consumption for 57 people--links the audience directly to the social, communal implications of this material exploitation. As a modular system, it suggests the possibility of infinite expansion, encasing, and holding more and more plastic material. Its ever-expanding design system includes a basic floor plank unit with “plug-in” designs for vertical shelving units and small benches and suggests that a world of improvised and adaptive utility goes hand in hand with waste management.
