Earth Objects
Madeline Benfield
If archaeological aliens were to come down to Earth today, what physical artifacts and archives would they unearth to best represent the human experience? We might think about showing them objects in museums, books in libraries, and photos in albums, but the most sincere and spontaneous physical representation of the human experience is picked up every week in front of our homes: our trash.
Earth Objects is an exploration into what could be considered the most natural and honest human archive. The Earth Objects zine begins to question how we think about our trash as a byproduct, rather than an archive. The Earth Objects installation highlights one piece of trash, the Ishmael Book, and explores the hidden identities and possible complex narratives behind our waste. The Earth Objects Archive, a permanent installation, places special importance on the collected pieces through careful curation and handling, the use of archival aesthetics, and the careful preservation of objects routinely meant to be out of sight and out of mind. The practice of archiving these objects gives value to the pieces, not by presenting them as beautiful objects, but by exhibiting that they are worthy of archive because of their honest representation of the human experience.