RUBBISH REIMAGINED

by Jessica Coulter

Erin Currier's use of collage, portraiture, and political murals is nothing new to contemporary art, until you
consider her medium: trash. An artist from Taos, New Mexico, Currier collects garbage from around the
world to create visual tributes to justice, human rights, and peace-as in the Muslim women strikingly portrayed
in Widows (above) with torn handbills, posters, and even a Nepalese airline sickness bag. "I'm politically active through my art:' says Currier. "That's how I express my beliefs" By revealing the power and beauty in what our globalized culture dismisses as garbage-from fast food cartons to indigenous people-Currier challenges our ideas about what should be discarded at all.

Utne1181 JULY-AUGUST2003