Corpus (2015-2016) is a series of interventions into the recycling collection points around Central. These recycling collection points are like the river mouths of the waste cardboard route. They buy not only cardboard waste, but also other kinds of waste: metal, plastic, other paper. They then compress these waste into bales that they deliver to the port.
Being part of a waste collecting group, and having access to a trolley, I now had a reason to liaise with the recycling collection points. I exchanged my waste cardboard not for money, but for experimenting with them. After a few failed attempts, I found the simplest kind of intervention that is non-intrusive. I noticed that the compression machine operators would put structural layers at the ends of a bale, to keep it together. They carefully cut and trim these layers, made of stronger cardboards. So I requested them to use my drawings as their structural outer layers, and they agreed.
As my transactions with the Sheung Wan recycling point grew into a relationship, they also allowed me rides in their truck to the transit port at Heng Fa Chuen/Wan Chai. I followed the bales, with traces of Wall Drawings as their outer layers, to this transit port. Most of the bales are let go here. This is Delta.
Approaching the making of Five Tonnes of Homes and Other Understories (2016), through Delta I found other recycling collection points. Working with them gave me more understanding of the system. In the meanwhile, the Wall Drawings evolved from being decorative to being narrative. The machine operators eventually started recognising the route while working on the bales. They started asking questions about the Filipino domestic workers’ activity that were unfamiliar to them.
[click on image for slideshow]
