This work resembles a personal diary for me. I spent more than two years collecting the contents of my own trash bin before photographing the refuse. I chose to photograph the aftereffects of my own private consumerism. By chronicling my own everyday life, I want to make people stop and examine the things that they do.
In making a personal statement, I am creating symbols of my own cultural history, while also addressing the issue of today's over-consumption and waste. I also want to reveal the surprising beauty in images of leftover garbage.
These are American consumer objects that people can identify with. I want to show who we are and what we consume. This chaos creates a balancing act between the documentary and the abstract.