sim hoi ling

 RubbishisSometimesARubbishButNotARubbish :

Examining Rubbish to Reimagine Rubbish 

Found objects collected everyday along AEON Big Wangsa Maju Street, photographic documentation of found

objects, video projection accompanied with recorded sound while washing the objects, wire mesh, cable tie

Dimensions variable

2015

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The project begins from the act of seeing, revolves around the act of examining. By examining what we see to reflect parts of reality that we do not see, by documenting reality to examine reality.

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Everyday for 3 months, I consistently collect discarded objects along the street from the same area, by an assumption that it was constantly discarded by the same collective of people, and it somehow forms the social ‘portrait’ of the residing collective.

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Rubbish or discarded objects reflects the human consumption behavior and their perception of ‘value’. Through examining discarded objects we can vaguely see who the users were, what they had consume, and their background from what they deemed as ‘valueless’.​

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In the second part of the project, I cleaned the rubbish, and took the act as a ‘ritual’ to examine and restore their original state from a ‘rubbish’ to an ‘object’. If rubbish equals to a ‘valueless object’, cleaning and washing them gives the conceptual meaning of re-examining the perception of ‘value’.

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As I constantly wash and collect discarded objects on street, I start to question what transforms an object instantly from a functional item to a rubbish?

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What makes people decide to throw it ‘here’ as opposed to ‘there’? Does it relates to how the person perceives ‘status’ of the self or the place? What makes they decide to throw or not to throw?

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As the questions go on, I took documenting rubbish as an act of curiosity to examine the world that I am in.