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Public Project
Useless
Copyright Jessica Alpern 2024
Updated Sep 2010

Two common themes in my work are identity and materialism. Having moved excessively in my childhood as well as in my adult life, the transient importance of possessions has always interested me. I’ve devoted many hours to acquiring and discarding the detritus of everyday living (dishes, furniture, bed linens etc.) transferring the things that filled utilitarian needs and leaving behind things that no longer served a purpose.

This collection is a look at those common objects, made or found, that no longer serve their purpose due to damage, defect or the inevitability of time. I took a particular interest in objects that were rendered useless through use; being destroyed by performing the very function for which they were created. The images are unexpectedly organic but are not intended to be abstracts. Rather they are a close look at an object that has itself become an abstraction. Watching these man-made entities transitioning from one form to another feels something akin to witnessing Pinocchio become a real boy.

Despite being at the end of its necessity it has not reached the end of its existence. It’s simply shedding one form for another. Photographing these dying objects during that transition is a celebration of potential as well as a final record before the destruction, recycling, repurposing, disbursing of its parts makes it unrecognizable.

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