Kelly Wood

The Continuous Garbage Project (1998-2003)

The Continuous Garbage Project is a single work of art. It consists of approximately 300 consecutive serial photographs, documenting the volume of waste generated by a single, urban individual, over a five year time period (1998-2003). No recycling is present in the document. I was that average urban inhabitant as I could think of no other way to track another individual, so closely, for such a long period of time. . .  The genesis of this project occurred kind of strangely, in a moment of humour. When I started to think about garbage, I realized that as a maker of things—a producer—I actually produced more garbage than I did art! This was horrifying to me. In that moment, in a spirit of ­resourceful ­thinking—or repulsion, I am not sure which—I found a way with the Garbage Project to, at least, even out this relation, immediately. So, for the following five years of this project, I produced at least as much art as I did garbage!