OUR DESIRES FAIL US
Photo Series & Exhibition:
With Sean Martindale. Harbourfront Centre, 2018
Waste reflects society.
Confronting our disconnected relationship with the vast amount of waste generated by consumer culture, this large-format photo series by JP King and Sean Martindale offers a rare look inside Toronto’s waste streams.
Garbage is generally perceived as filthy, chaotic, and disgusting, and our culture goes to great lengths to separate itself from the waste it produces. This systematic disavowal of the byproducts of everyday life creates a dark mirror reflecting the failure of our desires, progress, and priorities.
Our Desires Fail Us, JP King & Sean Martindale, Harbourfront Centre, Parking Pavilion West Face, 2018
The mirrored photos act like inkblots, forming a series of Rorschach tests that reflect the refuse of everyday life. Our eyes, naturally attracted to symmetry, experience pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon that causes us to see faces, creatures, and structures - both terrifying and alluring - where none exist. On closer inspection however, the beauty and patterns we see in these echoed forms dissolve into the abject reality of trash.
Our Desires Fail Us, JP King & Sean Martindale, Harbourfront Centre, East Entrance, 2018
While these complex images may look like digital renderings or composite creations, they are each single, mirrored photographs of the municipal waste stream. The detritus documented was not arranged or adjusted to compose the images, and the central mirror line of each is the uncropped, unmodified edge of the original photo.
These images encourage us to contemplate what is otherwise an overwhelming assault to the senses, alarming in its scale and environmental implications. If we are to change these ignored landscapes, we must develop a new relationship with the byproducts of our collective behaviour.
About the Project
Our Desires Fail Us continues the exploration Sean Martindale and JP King first unveiled in the streets of Paris, France, during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference - COP 21 / CMP 11, as part of Brandalism Paris, where bus stop advertisements were replaced with artworks that critically engaged social and environmental issues. That same year, Martindale created There Is No Away, an award-winning major extended project for Nuit Blanche Toronto, installed outside City Hall and supported by Solid Waste Management Services. King collaborated with Martindale to create multi-screen video elements of the installation, and shortly after, the single-channel short film, Solid Waste. Our Desires Fail Us results from their continued examinations of waste culture. Martindale and King were the first Artists-in-Residence with the City of Toronto, Solid Waste Management Services, and this project marks the launch of the pilot Artist-in-Residence program.
This project is generously supported by the City of Toronto, Solid Waste Management Services, and the Harbourfront Centre.
Participant Bios
JP King
JP King is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Nominated for a Governor General's Innovation Award, his visual research examines how we relate to what we get rid of and the ways in which the creation of waste shapes culture.
Sean Martindale
Sean Martindale is an internationally recognized, award-winning interdisciplinary artist, designer. His public interventions often focus on ecological and social issues, and playfully suggest alternate possibilities for existing spaces, infrastructures, and materials found in urban environments. Frequently, Martindale uses salvaged goods in unexpected ways that prompt conversation.