Abundance: The Dawson City Trash Project is a miniature diorama of the current and historical garbage sites in Dawson City, Yukon. All of the raw materials used to create the miniatures were from these dump sites, and because visitors to the gallery had technically provided the materials for the exhibit, every piece of the installation was free to take away. The project enacts a landfill that slowly erodes into people's personal spaces as opposed to the usual circulation of garbage away from people and into landfills. The main focus of the project is the redefinition of garbage: if gallery visitors choose to take garbage home with them, then garbage is no longer useless, unowned, unwanted, and unaesthetic. It means that solid waste management is dealing with useful, desirable, and potentially beautiful materials.
This project was made possible by the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, The Dean's Grant for Student Research through the Steinhardt School at New York University, the KIAC Aritst-in-Residence program, the ODD Gallery, and participants in Dawson City.
