Left behind in a warehouse after the Benevolent Beauty Products company closed its doors for good, these abandoned packaging materials, such as disposable compacts, lipstick tubes, and nail files, became the building blocks for this site-specific installation. The Hunterdon Art Museum, a former grist mill, produced an essential commodity, flour. To reimagine it as a place that produces cosmetics immediately calls into question the comparative fundamental value of the two products.
Beginning with a structure similar to a dressing room, the viewer is lured in by the chance of seeing themselves in the many mirrors, an essential step towards becoming self-conscious about one’s appearance, thereby creating demand for beauty products. Despite looking, this enclosure refuses to reflect back an image of a complete self, but instead extends hanging lines of packaging that appear to pass through the ceiling and walls into the museum lobby. There, they transform into aggressive brambles that threaten to grow continuously if not tamed, much like our ever increasing waste stream.
Ultimately, this work is experienced and will then be discarded, just as the materials would have been in the first place without my intervention, which begs the question - what is worth producing?