THERE IS NO AWAY
Installation + Multi-Channel Video
Sean Martindale + JP King. Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto Nuit Blanche. 2015
A multi-sensory confrontation
There Is No Away is a sculptural installation integrated with video that examines our consumer habits and waste systems, and the City of Toronto's Long Term Waste Management Strategy. The phrase "There Is No Away" is attributed to influential ecologist Barry Commoner who is considered one of the founders of the modern environmental movement and who proposed four laws of ecology. His second law, "Everything must go somewhere", means there is no "away" to which things can be thrown.
There is No Away, Sean Martindale. Nathan Phillips Square, installation view. 2015.
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Our culture is profoundly disconnected from the true scope and scale of our waste systems, and the impacts we can have both as individuals and collectively as a city. The sheer amount of waste and recyclable material that needs to be managed by the City of Toronto is astounding.
This installation intended to bring awareness to the huge and incomprehensible amount of garbage and waste that is discarded, the limited landfill space left, and to make an impact on people's actions, the choices they make, the things they purchase and how they manage those purchases.
About the multi-channel video
Today, the general public has grown immune to pictures of overflowing landfills and garbage trucks crawling across the urban landscape. Despite a widespread awareness of the impact that disposal has, waste remains very much invisible, overlooked, and ignored. The six videos in There is No Away aim to shift public perception of discarded matter and its management by providing a more poetic view of what goes on behind the scenes. Where most didactic films about waste cut short, these videos linger on the textures, forms, and structures, revealing the harsh elegance and potential beauty in everything that is thrown away. When faced with shocking images of waste, an audience often feels confused and ashamed. However, the videos in There is No Away hope to produce an experience that is more contemplative and critical. Through cinematography grounded in the formalist concept of defamiliarization, each video depicts a different stage of waste management in a manner that makes this reality strange, while simultaneously portraying it just as it is.
Participant Bios
Sean Martindale
Sean Martindale is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary artist & designer. His interventions activate public spaces to encourage engagement on ecological & social issues. His works question & suggest alternate possibilities for infrastructures & materials found in urban environments. He holds an MFA from OCAD U & a BDES from Emily Carr U.
JP King
JP King is an artist-educator with a special interest in discard culture, creative systems, and visual communication. He currently teaches within the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, in addition to the Integrated Design program at the Haliburton School of Art + Design. In 2016, the Canada Council for the Arts nominated King for a Governor General's Innovation Award based on his research about how waste shapes the world.