sayo watanabe

Artist Statement

I am a multi-media artist who explores whether discarded objects can fulfill societal needs and disrupt what is deemed valuable. Through surveys, archiving “trash,” metal, ceramic, and textile explorations, I study themes of personal and collective human experience. I gather everyday plastic waste - COVID tests, broken earphones, produce nets from grocery stores and merge weaving and knitting traditions to create interactive textile ecologies. I remix waste as playful installations to unpack the illusion of value in this time of mass consumption, waste, and individualism to tell untold stories with the human traces left in “trash'.