The intervention is materialized in the Pavilion through two large rugs, of the same dimension (approximately 13 x 6 meters), made up of a network of 10,000 disposable plastic bags of different colors, which have been selected and kept by the artist, who has collected them from stores in the city, saving them from ending up in the dumpster. One of the pieces is located inside the Pavilion and surrounds the onyx wall, occupying most of the floor of the noble room; the other is at one end of the large pool, outside, like a large raft.
Each bag implies and represents a transaction, the tangible residue of consumed goods, a resource that is sometimes reused but most of the time is thrown away. Available in large quantities, plastic bags are a symbol of a single-use culture.
The Cost of Money: Raft, Mark Cottle. Photograph by Anna Mas.
The Cost of Money: Raft, Mark Cottle. Photograph by Anna Mas.
They often arrive through a series of intertwined immigrant business communities and become indicators of a myriad of informal economies, neighborhood shops, and small, family-owned, or newly-arrived businesses. Mark Cottle thus encourages us to reflect on the excessive human cost that capital demands, especially in the most vulnerable populations, and the enormous expense it entails for the environment.
Each bag implies and represents a transaction, the tangible residue of consumed goods, a resource that is sometimes reused but most of the time is thrown away. Available in large quantities, plastic bags are a symbol of a single-use culture.
The Cost of Money: Raft, Mark Cottle. Photograph by Anna Mas.
The Cost of Money: Raft, Mark Cottle. Photograph by Anna Mas.
They often arrive through a series of intertwined immigrant business communities and become indicators of a myriad of informal economies, neighborhood shops, and small, family-owned, or newly-arrived businesses. Mark Cottle thus encourages us to reflect on the excessive human cost that capital demands, especially in the most vulnerable populations, and the enormous expense it entails for the environment.
"With “The Cost of Money: Raft”, I have wanted to bring the discussion on the steep human price capital exacts, especially for the most vulnerable populations, and at enormous expense to the environment, to the Pavilion, a place that represents a moment in which the industry was seen as a necessary tool towards the future but which already had a high social cost."
Mark Cottle.
The Cost of Money: Raft, Mark Cottle. Photograph by Anna Mas.
The almost 10,000 plastic bags that make up these two pieces have been selected and saved by the artist from the city's garbage cans, thus saving them from ending up in the trash container. Each carpet contains three groups of different colored bags.
