If anyone knows what our garbage says about who we are as a society it is Professor Kelly Wood of the Department of Visual Arts.
Visual Arts professor Kelly Wood’s research interests focuses on garbage and the relationship we have with it on personal and societal levels.
One of her ongoing research interests focuses on garbage and the relationship we have with it on personal and societal levels.
“I was intrigued by this relationship to the point that from 1998 to 2003 I collected and photographed my personal contribution to the garbage stream as part of my Continuous Garbage Project,” says Wood.
Her photography provides a compelling record of this collection and in doing so raises the visibility of what we routinely ship off to be buried without giving it a second thought.
By paying attention to her disposed material, Wood saw a reduction throughout the duration of her Continuous Garbage Project.
“During the project I went from a total of 63 bags of garbage in year one down to 25 small bags in year five.”
Her interest in photographing things like visible pollution in the air, litter and other waste has earned her the title in arts community as, “The Garbage Lady.” Her research has been displayed across the country as well as Europe and works to help people change how they look at garbage.
Wood’s visual arts research helps illuminate the fact environmental research at Western is happening in a mind-boggling array of ways – and it isn’t all in areas such as biology or engineering.
In the space of a little more than a year the campus members have been or will be witnesses to the opening of the controlled environment laboratories offered by the Biotron, followed this fall by the completion of the 10,000-square-foot ‘green’ building know as the Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Pavilion, scheduled to undertake some of the most advanced work in green technologies. This will be topped off by the completion of the new building for the Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources (ICFAR).
Other initiatives
Coordinating centre for Agricultural Bioproducts Innovation Network
New Director for Centre for Environment and Sustainability