Monthly Statement:
November 2005
Several weeks had passed since my last visit in October. I was quite disappointed when I arrived at the apartment…the place had really slipped. The kitchen, which we had brought to a clean state the last time I was there, had returned to stacks of dirty dishes and plastic containers in the sink, piles of used paper towels on the counters, and the floor covered with bags of groceries never unpacked. The dinning room table was piled in a mound, stacked with junk newspapers, coupons, bills and other papers. I had this sinking feeling that all of the work we were doing was for nothing; that as soon as I leave, the place would revert to its previous state, crammed to the brim. When I asked her where she thought we should begin, she responded that maybe we could re-tackle the areas that had slipped: the kitchen and dinning room table. I also suggested that we try to rearrange her telephone desk area (covered with papers and potted plants precariously placed and blocking large areas of the work space.)

We reorganized and restructured some of the furniture so she could use a table as a work surface for the laptop and created an alternate place for some of the plants. All of this takes time, especially wiping the dust and cobwebs. This area isn’t completely done, but for now I believe it will be more functional for her.

We decided to make dinner together before I left; some frozen soup packets, frozen tortellini and some salad. We went through two bottles of tomato sauce, one from 2003 and the other from 1996 – vintage years but sour sauce – we had to dump both and ate the tortellini plain. This is yet another reason not to buy too much at any price – it’s really not worth it in the end. After dinner we broke into her Haagen-Dazs stash – lots of containers in the freezer. I even brought a full container home with me.

My collaborator volunteered the Haagen-Dazs bar codes she had been saving. Though initially I wasn’t so excited by them visually, the gesture was really touching. As I studied the bar codes, I realized that the expiration dates spanned three years, 2004-2006. I arranged them chronologically and certain patterns emerged: flavors she favored at various times and changes in package design over the years.

Process:
My interest in the accumulation project began with a close individual, an obsessive hoarder, who is emerging from a decade long depression. I am the only other person who has been inside of the apartment since she moved in. The apartment is completely filled, waist-high with accumulation. There are stacks and piles of everything imaginable: unread New York Times newspapers dating back to 1997, hundreds of Penny Saver circulars, yogurt lids, and soda bottle caps. Nothing has been thrown away in years.

There are several pathways to navigate through the clutter in her apartment, though you have to move very carefully so as not to start a landslide. One path goes from the front door to the only empty chair; another goes past the refrigerator to the kitchen sink; one path leads through the hallway into the bedroom to the bed; another forks off to the bathroom. Despite all of the clutter, she is in fact a minimalist at heart, only utilizing the bare minimum in the apartment. I believe she is at point in her life when she can finally let go of all of this accumulation and move on.

Throughout the duration of the accumulation project (one year), I will visit this person in her apartment to help clear out all that she has been accumulating for years. I will collect some of the items we would otherwise discard and save them as documents of her accumulation. I will select things that are most striking by the quantity of the objects or by the nature of the objects themselves and their visual appeal.

As we work together to empty out her space, I will document the changing landscape of her apartment through photographs. The process of sifting through the clutter is like an archeological excavation: the various layers of debris correspond with different times in her past. For the two “accumulation project” exhibitions, I will show both the physical documents of the accumulation as well as the photographs of the process of de-accumulation in the apartment. This project is a social sculpture that involves the interaction between the obsessive collector and myself to create a positive change in her life and in her space through emptying the clutter she’s been accumulating for years.

My project explores the extreme case of accumulation in our disposable, consumerist society. I understand the impulse to save, reuse and recycle - however the rate of consumption of objects of planned obsolescence is significantly faster than the rate of reusing or creative ideas for reuse.