Recycled, Re-Seen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap

Abstract

Recycled, Re-Seen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap. Edited by Charlene Cerny and Suzanne Seriff. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, 1996. Pp. 208, 136 illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 paper) On the outskirts of New Delhi, an inveterate salvager risks his high caste status for the sake of his convictions by crafting toys and utilitarian objects from the metal, plastic, and paper scraps he collects at that megalopolis' bazaars. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, a retired junkyard owner, thoughts of the Guinness Book of World Records weighing on his mind, rigs his trailer home with thousands of hooked-together aluminum pop-tops, radiant in the Florida sunshine. And in the Port-au-Prince iron market, two Vodou priests and artists assemble the debris of Haiti's major city-car parts, slivers of mirror, dolls-into mojo boards that honor Vodou deities. What links such diverse people and manifold agendas resulting in the production of things in disparate places? According to folklorist Suzanne Seriff it is the act of recovering and transforming the detritus of the industrial age into handmade objects of renewed meaning, utility, devotion, and sometimes arresting beauty which contain visual, material, and conceptual reference to multiple technologies, histories, and temporalities. She terms this process (9-10). Not to be confused with official, please-separate-glass-from-plastic curbside recycling programs, this vernacular process is the subject of Recycled, Re-Seen: Folk Art fiom the Global Scrap Heap, a volume that complements the traveling exhibition opened at Santa Fe's Museum of International Folk Art in May 1996. Co-curators and editors Charlene Cerny and Seriff have grouped the thirteen essays of Recycled, Re-Seen, save the introduction and afterword, into four parts: Recycling and Transformation of the American Landscape; Recycling and the Global Marketplace; Recycling in the Streets; and Wearing the Other, Transforming the Self, The reader's Grand Tour of the global, jerry-built village takes off from America, eventually landing him or her in Mexico, Trinidad, and Kenya, among other ports of call. Essays facilitate an understanding of by illuminating the range of motivating factors and aesthetic sensibilities that influence how, why, and for whom these refabricated objects are produced and consumed (22). In line with divergent disciplinary imperatives, authors utilize historical, sociocultural, and/or behavioral approaches to contextualize the objects of the exhibition. Some writers integrate several perspectives within a single article. Although many contributors discuss individual makers, no matter how briefly, most essays represent a broad cultural approach as authors explore how objects made from cast-off materials symbolically express ethnic or national identity, materialize philosophical and religious tenets, or reflect a group's aesthetic ideals. An exception is Sci-Fi Machines and Bottle-Cap Kings, in which Joanne Cubbs and Eugene W. Metcalf, Jr. focus on the work and lives of two American artisans, investigating the mens' motivations and the role expressive behavior plays in formulating their identities. Regardless of primary perspectives, all of the articles argue, implicitly or explicitly, that intercultural recycling must be understood in local terms, studied from the inside-out, not the outside-in. In such a diverse collection, some essays are bound to be more compelling in their insights, nuanced in their observations, and engaging in their exposition than others. Fortunately, authors transcend the argument that making new things out of old `junk is often an economic necessity, particularly in the developing world, and move on, by and large, to interesting questions. Research findings are presented in different styles, ranging from syrupy to sassy, footnote heavy (footnotes of footnotes) to a form of fieldwork chronicle. …