Ste-Thérèse, Québec
Praxis Art Actuel
October 2013

The Rubbish Picker bearing the visible but unseen leftover materials found in the city during what was essentially the simple task of taking out the garbage. The project began with three days of rubbish picking on the streets of Ste-Thérèse, walking through the city’s different industrial, commercial and residential zones, over lawns, into empty lots and along streets. The cleaning was followed by a 35 km walk from Ste-Thérèse to Lachenaie, Québec, where the Rubbish Picker deposited two bags of rubbish – one recyclable, one garbage – in the regional municipal waste treatment facilities. The video captures a series of seemingly futile actions related to taking out the garbage, revealing that it is not a trick but rather work that goes into waste collection and the unseen places the refuse is dumped.