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Materially and conceptually, before reading the didactic on the wall, what message do you receive when first viewing José Luis Torres' sculptural work Material Culture?

Before reading anything about Material Culture when I saw the piece I was first taken in by the bright colours and the way the light shone through different items to create cast shadows with colour on the floors and walls of the gallery. The message I first saw was to make me (the viewer) challenge my own part in the consumer culture that holds such a big place in society. When I saw this piece and the way all of the plastics were intertwined I thought of garbage island, where all of the plastics that get tossed into landfills and end up in the ocean but can't decompose. Seeing this piece made me reconsider all of the items that we buy and ultimately end up in the oceans. The single use objects we are all guilty of adding into the world and driving the fabrication of more and more. After we are all gone and decomposed into worm food where will these plastic items be?

Given the diverse origins of the colorful items used in the piece and its placement within the gallery, how does José Luis Torres' Material Culture installation exemplify its site-specific nature, and how does the piece engage with its audiences?

I found this installation to be extremely engaging. First of all the way the piece is suspended forces the audience to look up. This adds a sense of inferiority to the viewer, I found that looking up at the installation made me feel small, an effect that I believe to be intentional to emphasize the scale of the piece. I think that the way the piece was centred in the room forces the viewers to walk around the room to see the piece from different views to see the different items included. I found this piece to be highly engaging and the more that I looked at the piece and walked around the room the more that I saw.

The mostly plastic items in the installation had to come from somewhere. Some were bought and some were borrowed and some belong to the artist. Does Material Culture challenge you – does it prompt you to think about your own consumption?

Personally I did find this piece to challenge me to think about my own consumption. I thought it was extremely cool that so many of these are household items that I own but seeing them all bound together and seeing the size of the piece made me think about my own environmental impact. Seeing how much of the plastic items that I owned myself made me consider the size of the footprint that I will leave behind on the planet long after I am gone. Something that all of the items included in this piece have in common is that they all things that will not decompose naturally. After leaving the exhibit I found myself reminded of post-apocalyptic film and how even when the world has fallen apart that we still see the footprint that humans leave behind. I find it interesting how there are no other species on the planet who can completely alter the environment like humans. The things that we make and the things that we leave behind remain even when we don't.