Cultural Appropriation as Archives : Media and Cultural Analysis Assignment C

Objects as a Story

Patricia Yaeger, author of "Trash as Archive, Trash as Enlightenment" delves into the idea that rubbish in itself can be created into art. Along with viable objects, anything that is discarded can be transformed into its' own piece. Yaeger discusses the idea that trash when transformed into art can also tell a story, either about the artist or about the time period in which the artist lived. She states "Rubbish becomes an archive for something that is not yet a story..." (Yaeger, 111). 

This idea can directly be related to Shinro Ohtake's scrapbooks. The objects that he collected and appropriated, including his own "trash" from his daily life was formed into an art piece. However, along with an art piece, the books also told a story about the time period that he was living in. The newspaper articles, the magazine excerpts and even the image quality of the objects he chose to display in his scrapbooks show the pop culture and the political, economic, and social standing from each time period. 

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