Garbage Pin

Yeah, I'm blogging again! This time about the versatile garbage pin. It's a pin with a silver structure that can hold a tiny, transparent plastic bag (the garbage bag). Once full, this bag can be removed, closed with a wire and kept as a memory of the experience. The pin questions the value of the waste and the memories attached to it, as they get combined with a precious metal! Throwing things away can be great relief, a way of cleansing your space. This garbage pin can be a call to reflect what we do with our waste. By wearing your own ‘experiences’ in a clear plastic garbage bag on your body, the piece becomes very personal. It has both an exhibitionistic and a voyeuristic side to it, because it could show what the wearer has been up to.
The contents of the bag go beyond their material properties, and may represent happiness, hope, fears or even secrets and guilt. The contents of the bag do not have to be random waste, but it can consciously be filled with symbols for contaminants of our society like war, pollution and global warming to challenge the voyeur.
Ana Cardim is the wonderful Portuguese designer of this manufactured pin. She mass-produced her pin so that many wearers could 'finish' the piece by filling the garbage bags. The piece is a kit that includes 5 spare plastic bags and wires. It even became a project called the garbage pin project (sponsored with a grant by the Portuguese ministry of culture). 100 artists teamed up to each do their own version of the Garbage Pin, by filling 5 garbage bags accompanied by photographs and a little written synopsis. This means 500 little garbage bags! Hopefully a schedule of the exhibitions will be published soon.