Where are you from?

A self-documentary on origins and connections

by Leanne Yanabu

What does this have to do with where you're from? You didn't come from a dumpster... But the way we're going, seems like we might end up in one.


DUMPSTER APPRECIATION, AESTHETIC SENSIBILITY, AND HYPOCRISY

Dumpsters were everywhere. Usually they were painted in different colors according to their company affiliations, but many had acquired splashes, spills, stains, and graffiti on their own. I admired their rectangular solidity and their stoic personality despite being knocked around, bashed in, rammed by careless drivers, splattered with paint and rained on.

I spent the summer in Hawaii. There were dumpsters there too. I liked the colors of the dumpsters and how they contrasted with the soft greens and pastels of tropical greenery.

I kept photographing dumpsters but I started questioning my own role as a photographer in documenting our waste disposal system. I had become an advocate of dumpsters, in the sense of becoming aware of how many of them we had and how necessary they were. But what good was that?

I was still creating waste myself, probably more since as a photographer I used film, chemicals, plastic, paper, metal, and other resources to process my work, such as electricity and water. I was just as much a consumer as those in the society I was implicitly criticizing.

There's no good solution to this, it seems. I still make photographs and I still photograph dumpsters from time to time. But I wonder what good it is to photograph dumpsters. Is what I do as a photographer important enough to outweigh the cost to society and the environment? Can photographs really call our practices into question? Is that the most effective way possible to change our usage?

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