New York City saw some of the biggest events during the July 4 holiday weekend. Not only did it celebrate 250 years of the US, but it also witnessed Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce‘s Madison Square Garden wedding. As the billionaire power couple exchanged their vows, the ‘I-do’s turned into a global social media moment.
Billboards flashed ‘JusT&T Married’, while subway stations hinted at the couple’s marriage with ’87+13=100′, referencing Kelce’s Chiefs jersey number and 13, a number long-associated with Taylor Swift. With everyone wanting a piece of the wedding, eagerly waiting to see the wedding pictures, an artist managed to preserve this cultural moment through unique memorabilia – trash.
Trash worth thousands
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding in the middle of Manhattan drew an array of opinions. While some were in awe of the scale, others questioned the privileges that came with being a pop icon worth $2.1 billion (as per Forbes).
New York City artist Justin Gignac collected street trash found outside and turned it into pocket-sized vitrine boxes to commemorate the T&T wedding. Confirming that people really do buy anything, he found bottle caps, cigarette butts, and even an AirPods and his glorified version of a parasocial junk-journal.
Speaking to Hyperallergic, Gignac said, “It wasn’t as dirty as I was expecting,” as he fished through the trash with a claw grabber outside the mega million-dollar venue. He added, “I found a lot of bottle caps, cigarette butts, and one left AirPod on the crosswalk — that was a first, even though those are probably the easiest things to lose.”
1700 garbage capsules, 20 years
However, the striking part was not collecting trash, but selling it. Justin made 50 such pieces and sold each transparent trinket online for $25 or Rs 2300. He labelled them ‘NYC Pocket Garbage’, part of his ongoing piece since 2001. What began as a project in college led to headlines and comments on that he told Hyperallergic, “If I could package something nobody would ever want to buy and convince people to buy it, then I knew I could prove them wrong.”
Over the past two decades, Gignac has sold over 1700 such capsules to tourists and people abroad who want to take a piece of the Big Apple with them.
Apart from sealing Taylor and Travis’ wedding in capsules of trash, Gignac has done that for several historically relevant events over the past years. Some of these significant milestones include Barack Obama‘s presidential run, the legalisation of gay marriage, and the 2009 World Series. Marking the 25th anniversary of his cubing adventure, Gignac returned to Times Square at one of the most important events on social media. Not only did he decide to pick the date for the fanfare, but also for the speculations and rumours around it.
Gignac’s project clearly highlights the issues of overconsumption and waste through an environmental perspective. However, as the artist told Hyperallergic, many people take away a different lesson: if people can be convinced to buy garbage, selling products they genuinely need should be even easier.