W 4 - Artist Statement

Henry Wellcome (1853-1936), who co-founded a multinational pharmaceutical company that mastered modern techniques of advertising and created AZT, also collected over one million diverse objects in his lifetime for a never realized museum of man. Wellcome '...really believed that you could read history, and you could read people's cultures, position on an evolutionary scale, from the kind of technologies they used' (Lisa O'Sullivan on Rear Vision, Radio National, 2009). In other words, he believed in the Enlightenment notion of Progress and that, inevitably, Western civilization was higher on that evolutionary scale than Other cultures from which he collected. My cube repositions Western civilisation on Wellcome’s evolutionary scale by showing just one consequence of its highly developed ability to make and sell.


In building the cube I wanted to completely consume the space I was allotted and force the viewer into participation by entering the work and engaging directly with it. In constructing the cube of undisguised rubbish, that is rubbish that is not transformed into a work of beauty, I am also refusing to engage with either aesthetics or craft. Many artists do transform recycled, reclaimed or natural materials into works that delight with their cleverness and expressivity (such as John Dahlsen, Fiona Hall, Yuken Teruya, MLSK and Joshua Allen Harris); but perhaps, unfortunately, the messages they evoke are opposite to their purpose. Instead, through my un-transformation, I am commenting upon fashionable ‘pop-ecology’ that pervades the media and our suburban lives. In so doing I expose my implication in systems of mass production, mass consumption and mass wastage. The cube simply declares, ‘this is my rubbish and you are standing in it, touching it, being touched by it, smelling it and hearing it’. Hopefully, the experience is uncomfortable reminding participants that human consumption is overwhelming us, but we continue to ignore its consequences.

This cube also replicates the "museum" and the "gallery" and destroys them. The modern museum and gallery are purpose-built buildings stripped of ornamentation, context and any function as living or work spaces. They exist to exhibit selected and arranged objects to the gaze of those seeking to fill their leisure-time. The selection and treatment of these objects by experts denotes their value as commodities and guides (controls and/or fixes) their meaning. However, in this “museum”, there is no light to see the venerated objects, the prohibitions against touching are lifted and there is no sense of reverent hush. As a result, the experience is not mediated or comfortable and there is no gift shop at the end.

Finally, it should be noted what is not in this cube. This cube represents only three weeks of SOME of my rubbish. There are no tins, glass, green waste and food scraps, grey or black water or non-recyclable waste that goes straight to landfill: I still took the easy and more pleasant route in choosing to what I wished to display.