Song Dong: Waste Not

Chinese artist, Song Dong’s exhibition entitled ‘Waste Not’, hosts over 10,000 household possessions and parts of the family home.

On entering the Curve Gallery there is an overwhelming sensation of the amount of objects that were collected in his family home – pots, pans, stationary, clothing, books, packaging and even used washing-up bottles were collected over five decades. The evident life of thrift has resulted in an obsessive nature to horde and collect.

In reflection to our current throw-away culture maybe there is something to be learnt from this exhibition. Not the obsessive nature of collecting everything, including the empty toothpaste tubes, but the habit of keeping items and reusing them again and again.

According to Recycle, on average every person throws way seven and a half times their body weight each year. If we were to recycle everything, we could save 58 million tonnes of CO2 a year, the same amount absorbed by 64,046 miles of forest.

Song Dong’s exhibition highlights the level of consumerism and waste in the world. It questions the throw-away culture we live in and promotes a more thrifty lifestyle that would contribute to lowering CO2 emissions worldwide.

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