Gaza Bowen

The text at the right is from Waste Not / What Not! a 20-page artist book created by Gaza Bowen during her residency.

Please contact Gaza Bowen if you would like to purchase a copy.

All items in this catalog were dumped by the citizenry of San Francisco at the county's transfer station to be trucked 60 miles for burial in the municipal landfill or to be crushed, baled, and trucked to a recycling plant.

During my four month artist residency at the transfer station, I witnessed the discarding of hundreds of thousands of usable items and materials -- enough items to fill a catalog like this one every day.

Approximately 4,000 tons are discarded at the transfer station every day.  The flow is endless, unstoppable, relentless.

This tragic squandering of earth's resources driven by rampant consumption has come to define the American way of life.  It is the grimy underbelly of our bright, shiny, 'there will always be more' consumer culture.

This catalog is my response to my residency experiences and subsequent research.

Page 1 of Catalog

The catalog was distributed to everyone who attended our artist reception on August 9, 2002.

Here is a photo of Gaza's part of the reception, which included posters of each page and some of the items included in the catalog.

In addition to the catalog, Gaza made this wall sculpture , titled Cryptotomes in January 2001.