This installation is made of things that were discarded by the people of Seattle, including bits of clothing, gloves, masks, pillows, bedsheets, an umbrella, a hammock, upholstery, and plastic bags. All was found within a mile of our campus.

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Leaving something outside exposes it to the city’s grime and to nature: mud, rainwater, sewage, bacteria, insects, mold. It gets plastered to the pavement, caught in gutters, and piled in dumpsters, alleys, and other places we’d rather not look. It gets marked with mud and mold, like a painting, and reshaped by rain and car tires, like a sculpture. But before being tossed out, these items were valued. Somebody wore these shirts and masks, someone slept on these bedsheets and pillowcases. Some of these gloves were worn by the artist themself when they built this installation. 

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Like these items, many people in our city are forced to exist outside. They are exposed to nature’s hazards: rain, snow, heat; and the city’s: pollution, police sweeps, hunger, harassment. Their position happens not in spite but because of our city’s structures. For Seattle’s housing prices to stay high, these people have to be unhoused. For employees to be replaceable, people have to be unemployed. For the few to possess much, many must be dispossessed. 

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Once valued and then discarded, these materials have been reclaimed and carefully joined together to make this installation. Housed by these particular trees, nature interweaves with human things to form a new structure, bearing witness to the beauty in all we discard.