Friskt kopplat, hälften brunnet. (Quickly connected, half burned.) was a participatory exhibition created for the 2013 Texas Biennial. Responding to reports that Sweden’s waste-to-energy program had become so efficient the country was importing trash to fuel it, HOMECOMING! collected well-worn, broken, and unwanted IKEA furniture, documenting each object’s product name, lifespan, retail cost, and owner satisfaction, and rebuilt it into five crates that functioned as both artworks and shipping containers.
The project was conceived to end with the crates shipped to Sweden and incinerated for energy, but they never made the trip. Instead, the crates were sold to a boutique, where they found a second life as furniture and storage.
Dates: Fall 2013 Venue: CentralTrak, The Artist Residency of the University of Texas at Dallas Part of: 2013 Texas Biennial
As an effort to expand the global conversation around energy usage and consumption, HOMECOMING! Committee is proud to present the participatory exhibition, Friskt kopplat, hälften brunnet. (Quickly connected, half burned.) as part of the 2013 Texas Biennial this fall. (Details are available atwww.texasbiennial.org.)
In October of 2012 Digital Journal reported that Sweden’s waste-to-energy program, which turns household waste into energy through incineration, has been so successful that the country now finds itself in a trash shortage crisis, which has resulted in a need to import waste from other countries. In an effort to help divert the crisis, HOMECOMING! Committee proposes to intervene with the following project.
After establishing a collection center designed for public disposal of well-worn, broken or unwanted IKEA furniture, HOMECOMING! Committee will collect used furnishings and document any available data pertaining to each object (product name, lifespan, retail cost, owner satisfaction). The collected objects and corresponding data will then be appropriated into art objects, triggering a reciprocal analysis of function and form.
The project will take the form of an installation at CentralTrak –The Artist Residency of the University of Texas at Dallas. The collected furniture will be constructed into crates that serve a dual purpose as appropriated art objects and shipping containers. These objects will be accompanied by documents that illustrate the collection and appropriation process that records our contribution to Sweden’s waste-to-energy program. In doing this, HOMECOMING! Committee wishes to address the adverse effects of post-industrial consumerism and disposable culture.
At the conclusion of the Texas Biennial, HOMECOMING! Committee plans to ship the work to Sweden for an additional exhibition before the custom-shipping-container artworks are sent to Torsviksverket in Jönköping for final waste-to-energy incineration, thus completing the project.
