Treasured trash

New York City.   A place where the streets buzz with a pulse all of their own.   How would you capture this infamous energy?   Artist Justin Gignac has been collecting New York City garbage and transforming it into art, simply by displaying selected trash in a clear container.

Originating as a challenge between friends to sell the unsellable, these cubes are fast becoming a cult collector’s item.   They represent a fascinating time capsule, a snapshot of daily life in which complex stories can be read from the simplest, most forgotten and discarded of sources.  Trash becomes treasure.

Perhaps this is another addition to the addage “only in New York”.   In the city that never sleeps, it is the garbage man who holds the secrets left behind by forgotten dreams.

Learn more at nycgarbage, and view a collection of cubes on Gignac’s flickr gallery.