TRACE

[TRACE] explores transformation and permanence in the urban micro-landscapes of 21st-century London. Fragments of human artefacts register as litter but speak to wider themes of consumerism and the inscription of human desires onto the environment. Discarded and disused, these found objects are the waste products of food, drugs, drink, furniture, industrial waste, sex and sport. At the end of their intended lives, they nevertheless persist as street-level agents of human activity. Their physical micro transformations of dismemberment, melting and decay are not isolated taphonomic processes but are constitutive of environmental pollution and the reconfiguring of the biosphere. Often hidden from mind, if not sight, [Trace] re-contextualises the detritus of modern urban life as vibrant, fascinating objects embedded in the circuits of global capital and exchange. [Trace] forces us to consider our role as environmental and geological actors in the age of the Anthropocene.

Text by Dr. Tim Stevens