Leave the Past Behind
For this project we had to collect our trash for a week and create a still life out of it with a concept. Keeping the trash for a week was not so hygienic and sounded really disgusting in the beginning. However, I tried and segregated the trash as much as possible, so it doesn’t become gross and start smelling. Sorting out trash is also a practice that became a habit only in New York and something that I took back home because it is not so organized in India.
There were also a few days when I actually reconsidered collecting food but already having mice problems it became difficult. Nonetheless I tried keeping banana peels, seeds and avocado cover. Personally, I don’t usually have a lot of trash because I try to eat at home and use as less material as possible. Nevertheless, accumulating trash also made me realize that if some individual produces so much trash, it is impossible to imagine it in the macro scale. Sometimes we forget such important aspects of environment and sustainability because in a day you might eat 10 food items that have a wrapper and throw it away without having any thought cross your mind. This was a really good assignment to keep yourself conscious of your actions.
For my project I decided to make a small figure out of the trash I had collected that could resemble as a child. I used most of my big bottles and cups as the legs and a big Trader Joe’s bag as the body. The bag was filled with some of the other junk for support. The head was made out of detergent container. My hand is placed on the figure’s head to represent someone from this generation while the figure is the future. Creating the figure out of trash was a portrayal of what we are leaving behind for our future. Although the hand looks like a blessing on the child, it actually is more like a burden. The main idea behind this still life is to spread awareness about sustainability and if we keep harming our environment at this pace our next generations wouldn’t be able to see an optimistic future. The light is unidirectional, originating from my side displaying that we could have a brighter future than the next and the shadow falls to the right. This is why my project is also named as ‘Leave the Past Behind’ because it’s a warning and indication for all of us.
