Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life
The Wellcome Collection in London, part of the Wellcome Trust, opens an exhibit this Thursday, March 24, that explores changing attitudes toward dirt and cleanliness from the seventeenth century to the mid-21st. The show is built around specific examples in six different places — Delft, London, Glasgow, Dresden, New Delhi, and New York. It runs […]
Read More »
The Nature/Culture/Society Interface
Today I came across a phrase that arrested the flow of my otherwise typical Thursday. A new PhD program in Germany called “Environment and Society” (more details here), a collaboration between Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität-München and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, describes how its interdisciplinary focus will allow students to explore questions related to “the […]
Read More »
Defunct Models of Pollution: Starring Oceanic Plastics and Body Burdens
This entry is based on the premise that 20th century models of pollution can no longer describe or solve the problems of 21st century plastic pollution. What follows is meant to be an accessible introduction to this problem. Two scenarios first caught my attention and lead me to study plastic pollution. The first is that […]
Read More »
Creative Reuse in NYC
Material for the Arts in New York has been an inspiration and catalyst for creative reuse across more than three decades. A collaboration between the city’s Departments of Cultural Affairs and Sanitation,* MFTA connects unwanted stuff with eager arts and education organizations. Under the savvy leadership of Harriet Taub, objects that would otherwise become part […]
Read More »
From wheelchair ramp to art
My good friend Dan Fenellon, known to many in the digital design world as “Wavedog” (http://www.wavedog.com), needed to build a wheelchair ramp at his home for his son, Brooks. Brooks has a disability that required him to be in a wheelchair for some time; however, due to his own efforts and the help of a […]
Read More »
Falling In Love with “This is New York’s Strongest”
We’ve mentioned Lisa Dowda and Liz Ligon before; they are the creative force behind Chasing Sanitation, a website about the lives and labors of New York City’s sanitation workers. This weekend they move beyond the web, into an exhibition opening Saturday in New York. Their work deserves a wide audience. Ligon’s photographs are lush and […]
Read More »
Vacs from the Sea: Icons of Yesterday’s Cleaning Power
Elextrolux has commodified, beautified, and publicized one of the worst pollution dilemmas of the century. Last Fall they unveiled “Vacs from the Sea,” a series of vacuum cleaners made from ocean plastics. Each vac uses plastic from one of five global gyre locations collected in collaboration with environmental groups. The North Sea edition, for example, […]
Read More »
…But Where Do We Put It?
It’s always been a doozy of a discard problem: where to put radioactive waste? How to make it inert — and keep it that way? It exemplifies the essential dilemma created by so many categories of our discards: how can it be contained? Recent developments at the Hanford Site, which covers 586 square miles in […]
Read More »
“A discard in the fountain” by Eric Friedman
Here is a post on Journal Square by Eric Friedman. He illustrates how places can become discards. Eric focuses on the phenomenology of place in his ongoing ethnography of Jersey City’s central square.
Debut Guest Post! Friedman’s “Washing Up”
I extend a warm welcome to Eric Friedman, Discard Studies’ newest contributor. A sociologist, Friedman’s work focuses on the forces behind urban decay, renewal, and stasis. The example he explores in most depth concerns Journal Square, the formerly vibrant commercial and cultural hub of Jersey City, NJ, that is now a desolate place scarred by […]
Read More »
Discard Studies 