Displaying Garbage: Installations as Spaces of Domination and Resistance

Abstract

Contemporary artistic installations presenting the detritus of everyday life are an increasingly popular method of raising awareness of what we produce, consume, and throw away. As social critique, these displays examine the political and economic causes and consequences of waste production and resulting ecological degradation. Drawing on Herbert Marcuse’s conceptions of aesthetics, liberation, and ecology in capitalism, this article attempts to discern where we might find hope, encouragement, and active imagination of another possible future through artistic installations. This article cautions that garbage art may both open and close off creative and imaginative spaces for transformation to a liberated society. Differentiating between two categories of art installations, this article explores how installations can reflect back to us our complicated relationship with waste and consumer culture, raising questions as to how the aesthetic realm might serve as a springboard for critique of capitalism.