Waste Not: Zhao Xiangyuan & Song Dong (2009)

“Waste Not is an exhibit by Chinese artist Song Dong that displays over 10,000 domestic objects formerly owned by his late mother, who refused to throw anything away if she could possibly reuse it. She had suffered poverty during China’s turmoils in the 1950s and 1960s and had acquired a habit of thrift and re-use that led her to store domestic objects of all kinds in her tiny house in Beijing. After the death of her husband in 2002, her desire to hoard items became an obsession that began to have an impact on her standard of living. Song and his sister managed to alleviate it by persuading her to let him use her possessions as an art installation, reflecting her life and the modern history of China as experienced by one family. First exhibited in Beijing in 2005, Waste Not has since travelled around the world to major galleries in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, where it has been well received by critics.” Wikipedia

Edited by Wu Hung
Publisher Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, and Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, 2009
ISBN 9784904149027, 4904149025
188 pages

WorldCat

PDF (34 MB)