Displaying Garbage: Installations as Spaces of Domination and Resistance
Abstract
## Abstract Contemporary artistic installations presenting the detritus of everyday life are an increasingly popular method of raising awareness of what we produce, consume, and throw away. As social critique, these displays examine the political and economic causes and consequences of waste production and resulting ecological degradation. Drawing on Herbert Marcuse’s conceptions of aesthetics, liberation, and ecology in capitalism, this article attempts to discern where we might find hope, encouragement, and active imagination of another possible future through artistic installations. This article cautions that garbage art may both open and close off creative and imaginative spaces for transformation to a liberated society. Differentiating between two categories of art installations, this article explores how installations can reflect back to us our complicated relationship with waste and consumer culture, raising questions as to how the aesthetic realm might serve as a springboard for critique of capitalism. ## Notes 1. See, for example, the garbage strike in Naples in 2010 in Philippe Ridet, “Naples Remains in the Grip of a Waste Nightmare,” The Guardian, 19 October 2010, sec. World News, available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/19/naples-chaos-waste-mountain, complaints from residents of Seattle about garbage haulers examining their trash in Jack Broom, Seattle Times, 17 July 2015, available online at: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/suit-claims-seattle-garbage-collection-inspections-violate-privacy/, and the wasteful remains of the People’s Climate March in New York in Lauren Evans, “People’s Climate March Leaves Trail Of Trash,” Gothamist, sec. News, available online at: http://gothamist.com/2014/09/22/climate_march_trash.php (accessed March 6, 2015). ... 78. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society, p. 70.
Faculty Members
- Sarah Surak - Departments of Political Science and Environmental Studies, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD, USA
Themes
- Imagination and transformation for a better future
- Role of art in society
- Ecological awareness
- Waste production and consumer culture
- Social critique
- Philosophy of aesthetics in capitalism
Categories
- Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies
- Musicology and ethnomusicology
- Humanities, other
- Visual arts, media studies design, and arts management nec
- Philosophy and religious studies nec
- Art history, criticism and conservation
- Music nec
- Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies nec
- Humanities and humanistic studies
- Visual and performing arts
- Philosophy and religious studies
- Political science and government, general
- Sociology, demography, and population studies
- Social sciences
- Philosophy
- Dance, drama, theatre arts and stagecraft
- Sociology, general
- Sociology, demography, and population studies nec
- Religion religious studies
- Humanities
- Political science and government
- Political science and government nec
- Theological and ministerial studies
- Performing arts
- Visual arts, media studies, and design