Gregg Segal's «7 days of Garbage»

Alfie, Kirsten, Miles, Elly   © Gregg Segal

Michael, Jason, Annie and Olivia   © Gregg Segal

Marsha and Steven © Gregg Segal

Dana © Gregg Segal

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Just thought I would share this really interesting California photographer Gregg Segal's environmental lense  “7 Days of Garbage”  project. As Jordan Teicher's article on Slate (more photos), I saw from the Grist newsletter says : « the average American produces more than 4 pounds of garbage per day. That’s more than double the amount produced in 1960, and it’s 50 percent more than the amount produced by Western Europeans ». I asked the artist for his permission to publish it here. Should he decline, I will remove it.

I appreciate his work, and some findings from my research so far converge saying art is an effective trigger to reach a wide public from its ability to « talk about environment, without saying it » (free translation from my 2014 Kim Cornelissen interview), which had me ponder as I felt this was perhaps not a transparent or awareness trigger I would have hoped for, as if -people don't want to hear about it so, let's -hide it- but hope or trust it will touch them anyhow ...It also came through the interviews that art/creative happenings etc... also allowed one's own critical thninking to take place, which could encourage the desire to mobilize.  Although clear and understood scientific information had a potential to reach people, touching one's emotions was vital for most my interviewees in order to decide to engage in pro environmental activism and they all felt it was similar for other audiences. And art, as we can also imagine, came as one of the efficient ways to do touch one's emotions. Well here, I love the idea, find it creative and feel touched or challenged somehow.

 I also wondered if people's decisions to participate changed their personal view, and as to how much they were influenced in their consumption choices that week, knowing they we're taking part in the project. Were they -self-conscious-? We're they concerned with their habits? Did they experience guilt? Did they -control- themselves on fast foods or useless spontaneous buys? We're they frustrated feeling they had to buy specific products that particular week? Did they discuss the need to buy particular stuff between them? Did they -play the game with transparency? Or even, we're they influenced by the looks of packaging, we're they tempted to read the label contents?  Should that have had any effect on their choices, then, we can think that even simply asking them to participate brought some -positive- behavioral changes, or at least critical thoughts to some extent, being confronted to their own consumerism?

Really fascinating to think of what went through their heads as consumers, as subjects submitted to outside eyes, and how they related to the environment through this experience. A good thesis subject just right there I thought! Then, how do we, the reader receive all this material to ponder upon...
(back with more on art's potential...)
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