How tightly can a product’s lifecycle be compressed... and what are the ramifications of doing this? With the MicroCycle project I’ve attempted to ask these question as a public performance. I set up a mini manufacturing station outside a small grocery store in Brooklyn; scrap material from a nearby suit factory was used to create shopping bags for customers as they entered the store. The salvaged materials traveled 3 city blocks before being repurposed into products that would minimize waste.

Though difficult to prove, I theorize that the public fabrication and the local connection to materials serves as a mnemonic device, helping users remember their shopping bags, thus avoiding neglect, the downfall of the ubiquitous reusable tote bag.

Map showing proximity between the suit maker and the grocery.

MicroCycle was covered by the website New York Art Beat on June 6, 2008. Click here to read the article.