The Problem with Five Dollars

There are three possible outcomes to the performative, exchange aspect ofSaltwinning, two of which are uninteresting and one of which is fascinating and at the core of the project. The first is that I can take some of the best pieces back with me to New York and sell them for three or four digits. But all New York's art market can tell me is that trash art is trendy, which I already knew.

The second is that people can leave me five dollars, garbage, or that macrame plant holder that has been sitting in the house for months but hasn't been brought down to the Sally Ann yet-- junk, in other words. Expendable, undesirable stuff. And while this might be personally insulting (valuing my work at less than minimum wage), it actually means something more important: If garbage is defined as unwanted detritus, disgusting residue, worthless junk, expendable disposables, ugly crap, then by definition, this object they desire cannot be garbage. And even though someone wants a piece, wants to touch it, to look at it, has had fun with it-- desires it, in short-- the category of "garbage" is stronger than their personal experience.

The third possibility, and the reason I do all of these trash-based art economies, is that they could recognize that these objects are exquisite. They are beautiful, desirable, intimate, mysterious, delicious. And therefore not garbage. They are some other thing with some other value. In which case the dilemma is to figure out what kind of thing with what kind of value? This is what I am interested in. In a way, the artists in the crowd have it easy. They can leave an in-kind donation: their artistic pick of the litter for my pick of the litter. Other folks have to be more creative.

And this creativity, this moment of being stumped but open to possibilities is the basis of the project. Saltwinning is a microcosm of the cultural work that has to be done for a sustainable future. If garbage is always garbage, always worth five bucks or a piece of junk, even in the face of experiences that might dictate otherwise, then there is no other future, no other possibilities for garbage. Sustainability has to be a paradigm shift: the same old objects have to mean something new, circulate differently, get used differently, have a new ontology (being) with a new epistemology (knowledge). This is what is important and interesting about what can potentially come out of the exhibition. I look forward to how the City of Nelson responds to the challenge.