Quilted Consumption

2008-Present. Sewn Recycled Plastic Bags.

Consumption Device. Installed at Blue Door Gallery. March 20-May 18, 2011.

Quilted Consumption is a body of work created with recycled plastic shopping bags and assembled with needle and thread. Pieces range in size from 5″ x 7″ to 23″ x 23″. This project was prompted by the growing [obsessive] culture of consumption that is the focal point of American Culture (and increasingly other cultures of the world) and, subsequently, the waste it generates. Today packaging is excessive and often nested inside additional packaging, which is nested in an outer layer – the plastic shopping bag. Much time, money, and effort is put into designing packages that simultaneously protects merchandise from its global travels and lures customers to purchase that same merchandise. Packaging is manufactured to ultimately reside in dumps days after the manufacturing and shipping process have used precious raw materials and fossil fuels. The feedsack quilts of the depression era and the photomontages of the Dada movement inspire the material and form of Consumption Quilts. Traditional feedsack quilts were created from patterned cloth (often cotton) foodstuff sacks. Feedsack quilts mark a period in the United States’ industrial history when packaging was designed for reuse rather than for discard. An individual feedsack quilt demonstrated the virtuous qualities of thrift and prudence of its creator. In honor of feedsack quilts, I have chosen to sew all of the work in Quilted Consumption. Photomontage artists (of the Dada variety) cut, recycled and reassembled media images as a form of critique. In the spirit of their work, I have cut, recycled and reassembled consumer packaging into “art objects” to critique the way we glorify consumption and the wasteful by-products of this behavior.

Consumption Portrait #11. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 6" x 9".

Consumption Portrait #2. 2009. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 10.5" x 13.5"

Consumption Portrait #9. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 8" x 10"

Consumption Portrait #3. 2009. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 8" x 14"

Consumption Portrait #4. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 11" x 14"

Consumption Portrait #5. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 5" x 7"

Consumption Portrait #8. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 5.5" x 7.5"

Consumption Portrait #7. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 7" x 7.5"

Consumption Portrait #12. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 8.5" x 9.5"

Consumption Portrait #15. 2011. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 8" x 8"

Consumption Portrait #1. 2009. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 10.5" x 13.5"

Consumption Portrait #10. 2011. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 8" x 11"

Consumption Quilt #5. 2008. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 16" x 16"

Consumption Quilt #4. 2008. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 23" x 23"

Consumption Device. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 9" x 9" x 4"

Consumption Mill. 2010. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 28" x 20" x 10.25"

Consumption Portrait #13. 2011. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 16.5" x 16"

Consumption Portrait #16. 2011. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 7" x 7"

Consumption Quilt #3. 2008. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 13.5" x 13.5"

Consumption Portrait #14. 2011. Recycled plastic shopping bags and thread. 8" x 9"

Quilted Consumption

2008-Present. Sewn Recycled Plastic Bags.

Rebecca Mushtare

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