everydaytrash

One of my favorite things about keeping a trash blog, as I like to mention here, is that it not only allows me to find and report on things that interest me, but for people to find me themselves and pass on interesting tidbits. This morning was one of those days. I woke up, checked my email and found a nice note from Douglas Brodoff, an American artist living in France whose ongoing series “Petits Hommes Verts” or “Little Green Men” honors the sanitation workers of Paris on canvas and in photographs.

Take a click through, I think you’ll enjoy what you see. Pictured here is Brodoff’s “Les ordures dorment jamais” or “Refuse Never Sleeps”. I love the pink light of Paris used in such a trashy context.

For more on Parisian trash, revisit old posts on the poubelle and its namesake.

The Internet connections in Kampala have been terrible this week. Please excuse the infrequent postings. Below is an invitation to keep track of your trash on the 9th. I’ll be participating from Africa, hope you will too!

—

Leila,

I am artistic director of THE COMBUSTIBLES, a New York based physical theater company making original, ensemble-based work. We conduct explorations into the impulses of movement, the poetry of text, and the mysteries of objects. We strive to create green, less wasteful theatre, while launching thrilling and unexpected new works. The company’s current project is DETRITUS, a dark and comic tale about New York City’s trash.

The company has been reading your blog as a part of our research process of gathering source material and information on trash. I wanted to share with you what we are working on and to extend an invitation. As a part of our research we are conducting a day survey project on Friday March 7th. On this day all participants will join the company in keeping a record of their day, especially with regards to trash. Would you be interested in participating? Also, would you be willing to post something on everydaytrash announcing the project and as an open call for participants? Being able to reach the large and diverse community of readers of everydaytrash would be amazing for this project and for the company.

Please let me know if any of this interests you. I am excited about starting a dialogue with you
and would love to talk more with you about our company and find out more about your work.

Thanks,
Anne Sorce
http://www.thecombustibles.com

More info about DETRITUS:
Remember the 5 pounds of trash you neatly tied up and tossed into the can outside yesterday? What would you do if the contents came back to haunt you? In DETRITUS, five creatures from the underworld bring back to the surface what you thought you’d disposed of forever.
Inspired by New York’s trash, these grotesques and bouffons will keep you laughing, even as the terrifying facts about waste spill into your laps.

More info about the survey:
Responses to the survey will be a vital part of the creation of DETRITUS.
The instructions and form for the survey are included below.
Friday March 7th is the day. Please email surveys to info@thecombustibles.com.

For more information, please explore http://www.thecombustibles.com.

The aim of the day’s survey is to discover what happened to each
Observer on that particular day, especially in regards to waste. ABOVE AND BEYOND, we are interested in what waste you produced today. If you don’t do anything else, pay particular attention to this and report it.

What is required is primarily a factual statement; then an account of any feelings he/she had which seem sufficiently important or noteworthy for record.

1) State your name, address, age, sex, married or single, politics or
religion, if any, very briefly.
2) State your job or occupation during the day. (State whether it was
a normal day for you, or if abnormal, in what way.)
3) State your health on the day in question.
4) Describe briefly and factually the events of your day, giving
times; please make particular note of any material (solid, liquid or gas) that you disposed of, recycled, burned. However ordinary the events and objects may seem to you, they are of interest in this inquiry.
5) Keep your feelings out of 3-6. Then describe your feelings about any of the waste during the day, if possible, in a final selection.

The following suggestions may of assistance:
*Try to write down notes as frequently as possible. Do not interrupt
anything to do so.
*In all cases it should be stated when the observations were written
down, and when finally written up.