Workshop of Research Artistic Production and Contexts of Creation |
Michael Coombs
Participant
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Intervention in a public space where “cardboard boxes” made of compact plaster were distributed across from Banks in San Miguel de Tucumán. |
Objetos de peso
The work took the form of an intervention playing with the word peso,
which in Argentina has both the meanings of weight/money.
The intervention consisted of placing 50 boxesm which were cast in plaster,
outside the international banks in the city of Tucumán.
The plaster boxes were painted to look like cardboard so that they looked
realistic to the eye, but once you had any contact with them you realised
they were something completely different for they weighed about 20 kgs
each. In total I used 1 ton of plaster to make 50 boxes.
In Argentina people collect cardboard, which is left on the streets as
rubbish, as a source of income, and sell it to factories that recycle
paper. It is incredibly hard work and it is bought by weight at a very
low price. The cartoneros make barely enough money to eat. At the time
I was in Argentina there was a huge economic crisis and, in order to survive,
more and more people were turning to collecting cardboard as their source
of income.
I felt I wanted to use these carboard boxes as powerful symbols, but to
represent them diferently from the way in which they are usually perceived.
Also I was interested in the fact that money is made from the same basic
material as cardboard boxes, and how abstract the concept of money has
become in modern society, but even more so in Argentina because of the
devaluation of currency.
This is why I used this imagery and placed boxes outside the international
banks. Many of Argentina's problems have come from foreign debts and I
felt the objects were making a powerful statement.
I believe the work was very successful as the reaction from the public
that came into contact with the boxes was extremely positive and the objects
became the focus of unusual social interaction. People from all walks
of society, from the cartoneros to bank managers and those interested
in art, engaged in lively discussions with each other on the street.
This was very interesting for me because usually cardboard boxes which
are placed on the street are associated with the social stigma
of working with this material. Yet now people from other social backgrounds
were discussing these objects and even taking them away. I hope that in
creating this small surreal intervention some people's perceptions of
cardboard and the cartoneros has changed.
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Michael Coombs |