Dumpster diving

Dumpster Diving, to seize food from the trash container, means to defy the agreement and return the status of food. But perhaps above all, it is also a criticism of the enormous wealth that enables a bag full of sparkling decent food.

The difference between food that is sold and food that is garbage do not need to have much to do with the food itself. The food available on store shelves may have flaws, and the food that gets thrown in the trash can be error-free. So it is rather the context that determines how we see and feel about food, and the waste process becomes almost a ritual act which alters the social agreement on the status of the discarded.

Another ritual behavior that can change the status of anything is photography. The question is what happens when these two actions join. My exhibition therefore consists of pictures of food taken from garbage containers. The material I used are also things that are not normally used, but relegated to the residual layer and garbage: The pictures are taken with the self-modified pinhole camera in Hungarian low quality film, printed on leftover paper in odd formats and put into second hand frames.

Text and photo © Mattias Lundblad