An archaeological investigation of a 1,000 lbs bale of post-consumer clothing from Goodwill Industries
The Masters of Anthropology Creative Works Project “Unpacking the Bale: An Archive of Post-Consumer Clothing,” completed at San Francisco State University, is a pilot study in art/archaeology and archaeology of the contemporary. The project began with archaeological fieldwork consisting of sampling and cataloging a 1,000 lb. bale of post-consumer clothing from the Goodwill Industries Outlet of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties, located in Burlingame, California. The project culminated in an Exhibition titled “70 Pound Robe” presented at If/Then Studio, in Berkeley, CA, in May of 2018, as well as a written user guide that presents contextual theoretical and methodological background, documentation, and discussion of the project.
Post-consumer clothing and discard have been given little attention in the social sciences until recently, but clothing waste continues to be a mounting global issue. In this pilot study I question how items that are once familiar, intimate, and closely bound with our individual personhood are obscured through a matrix of waste management systems. Underlying studies of waste are questions related to materiality—how our relationships to things influences the way they enter and exit our lives. And importantly, how waste continues to have an effect even when we think it is out of sight and mind. Previous studies of clothing disposal have primarily relied on surveys based in consumer-behavior studies. The reported behavior however does not account for what types of garments are being discarded and what condition they are in. Beginning with an archaeological framework brings the material to the fore.
The process of my project is grounded in traditional archaeological methodology but breaks from conventional modes of knowledge production. Rather than emphasize the numeric and descriptive data collected through the cataloging process, I emphasize the sensorial and inter-subjective information of working with and being surrounded by a large mass of discarded clothing informing a polyvalent research outcome that aims to connect people with their waste. “70 Pound Robe” was a garment constructed of remnants from the 1,000 lb. bale. The robe weighing literally 70 lbs. is the amount of clothing discarded in the United States annually, per person. It is meant to be worn and experienced, serving as a kind of disruption in the ways people connect to discarded clothing and evokes new ways of experiencing archaeological knowledge.