elective insomnia

unconsumption:

Jean Shin. Chemical Balance, 2005-2009.

To create this work, thousands of empty prescription pill bottles were collected from nursing homes, pharmacies and individuals’ medicine cabinets. Like stalactites and stalagmites, the constructions hang down from above and grow upwards from the floor below. Chemical Balance speaks to our culture’s over-consumption of prescription drugs and our bodies’ dependency on these medications. The piece acts like a group portrait, mapping our society’s chemical intake. The illuminated structures radiate with an intense orange glow, suggesting that issues of health reach far beyond the physical.

From an April 2009 story in The New York Times, I like this description of her work:

She has very particular criteria for the salvaged materials she uses in her work: that something is “cast off from a person’s life because its desirability and usefulness are questioned, that it in some way archives a personal history but also can speak to larger issues going on in our culture.”

 “And then,” she added, “can I deconstruct it and make it new?”

Related: Earlier post about her work.

(via vergalicious)