triangulation: waste, reform, confinement, place.

subtext:

Environmental justice scholars and geographers have documented the physical zoning of sites and locations of ‘discards,’ or those processes or individuals valued as being used, consumed, and then thrown away; or kept in a physical state of isolation, to be cultivated into something else or punished, as such. In Oregon, the location of the largest state penitentiary, the first federal Indian reform school, and a waste center are within 15 miles of each other. This space and these persons, both within the locations and processes are all a part of this political economy of discarding and reforming. To be reformed into the vision of the white supremacist state both the Native person and inmate become indentured to a physical site and engaged, or kept from engagement with the autonomous practices that make them human. Confinement and discarding are interrelated conditions that make individuals and objects subjects. Waste is not a byproduct, but instead an essential part of capitalism. Not only the use of things, but the use of people are discards that have a low valuation on the hierarchy of essential function and being.

art description:
Mapping out these locations, I connected them through the visual representation of the discard and confinement that are constructed in these locations. Doing so, creates a new interpretative framework for this geographic locale, and forces a critical consideration of these places are interrelated.