Travel in Memory

Maggie Stark, USA
with Elena Mastracci, Italy

Travel in Memory is based on the idea that rubbish dumps are “graveyards of modernity,” “cemeteries of contemporary life,” a memory of what once was. New technology and fashions replace old (now seen as superfluous) objects; and, in this way, rubbish becomes a sign of a society increasingly oriented towards consumption.

Acting as urban archaeologists, the artists photographed garbage on the streets of their hometowns. Each photo has a story – a trace of the trash’s previous existence. The artists’ then swapped photos, placed them on their streets, and rephotographed them. They, thus, recontextualized the original garbage, creating snapshots of our decaying past, now recycled as yet another product of our age.

Text excerpted from catalog, Here, There, and Everywhere: Anticipating the Art of the Future
Produced by the TransCultural Exchange
Photograph by Maggie Stark, 2009