Photos of “Waste Not” Exhibition, Song Dong, "The Section of Experimental Art at the 18th National Art Exhibition"

The Waste Not is a large installation made together by the artist and his mother ZHAO Xiangyuan in 2013. The original motivation is that the artist invited his mother to help him make an exhibition to distract his mother from sorrows, and to relieve her depression.

The explanation for the phrase “waste not” in the dictionary states: everything has their usable quality, and should be used fully without wasting anything. Rather than a traditional virtue of Chinese, frugality is more of the only survival method for a poor family during harsh time. The objects shown in these photos all belong to one person, Zhao Xiangyuan, the artist’s mother, who has hoarded everything through years. These include small items such as bottle caps, worn shoes of her children, used closes, cloths, tools, lunch boxes, nails, plant pots, toothpaste peels, and large objects including the roof beams. These objects are literally a person’s life epic, are material manifestations of her life history and feelings. As she describes, “these objects are not samples, but are traces of my life, leftover of the time. Time has also taken away so many things from me, for which I have tried to preserve everything and to extend their lives.”

This is a sentimental work, as it explores the relationship between human and objects, and transformations of locales and time. These objects, useless or useful, displayed in life or exhibition, are all intertwined by chains of feelings, and will be passed down to the next generation.