barbara hashimoto | junk mail

THE JUNK MAIL EXPERIMENT

RECENT REXHIBITIONS:
Musée du Montparnasse (Paris) link>
Dubhe Carreño Gallery (Chicago) link>

Shredded Junk Mail with Grand Piano, installation, 2007
Photo: Eric Young Smith

The genesis of The Junk Mail Experiment was inspired by a number of mind-boggling statistics: AMERICANS RECEIVE 77 BILLION PIECES OF JUNK MAIL ANNUALLY and THE AVERAGE AMERICAN WILL SPEND EIGHT MONTHS OF HIS/HER LIFE HANDLING JUNK MAIL. Statistics like these have taken hold of the artist both visually and physically.

Hashimoto embarked on the project in June 2007, committing to collect the junk mail that would be delivered to her studio address for a one- year period. She incorporated the daily hand-shredding of this unsolicited material into her studio practice. At the end of twelve months she had amassed more than 3,000 cubic feet of shredded material. The artist’s labor-intensive yet intimate process has inspired a series of sculptures, installations, performances, and collaborations presented in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Paris.

JUNK MAIL TIMELINE
As Artist-in-Residence at BauerLatoza Studio, a multidisciplinary architecture firm with a committed sustainable design practice, Hashimoto proposes to collect the junk mail that the firm receives for 12 months. more >

ART IN AMERICA REVIEW
Chicago((The sensation of swimming in trash, or junk, seems quintessentially modern – a consequence of insatiable appetites for new products and the attendant proliferation of packaging and advertising. more >

EARTHFIRST.COM | BARBARA HASHIMOTO MAKES ART OUT OF JUNK MAIL
We all get inundated with seemingly never-ending streams of junk mail in our mailboxes, but Barbara Hashimoto is waist-deep in it... She has filled room upon room with it, creating ethereal seas of paper. more >

GREENMUZE.COM | JUNK MAIL ART
American artist Barbara Hashimoto works with junk mail in her provocative and extremely popular installations. To date she has created the Junk Mail Experiment, Junk Mail with Grand Piano, Junk Mail Landscape and Junk Mail Xmas art installations. We caught up with Barbara to ask her a few questions about her multi-faceted junk mail art installation. more >

FORESTETHICS.ORG | JUNK MAIL ARTIST PARTNERS WITH DO NOT MAILCAMPAIGN
Recently, ForestEthics' Organizing Manager, Linda Wells, was in Chicago for an event we co-organized with renowned artist Barbara Hashimoto, who uses junk mail as her medium. more >

FLAVOR PILL REVIEW
That she accumulated 3,000 cubic feet of paper speaks volumes about the so-called "direct mail" industry, and her organic-feeling installation is both formally lovely and ecologically alarming. more >

NEW CITY REVIEW
From the street, you may think it’s hay. Grass. Something organic, harvested from right from the gallery floor. It streams out of the walls, tapering down into tail formation, filament-covered knolls flowing across the Chicago Arts District. more >

BARBARA HASHIMOTO ON FRESH CUT
A video of Barbara Hashimoto: Junk Mail by Dorothee Royal-Hedinger link>

BARBARA HASHIMOTO'S INTERVIEW ON PUBLIC TELEVISION
Hashimoto discusses her Junk Mail Experiment on Chicago Public Television with Alexis Weed (aired April 20, 2008) link>

41pounds.org | CHICAGO ARTIST CREATES ASTOUNDING EXHIBIT WITH JUNK MAIL
Last summer, artist Barbara Hashimoto asked a small business in Chicago to start collecting its junk mail. After 12 months of shredding, Hashimoto amasses more than 3,000 cubic feet of shredded material,all delivered by the U.S. Postal Service to this one small business. more >

JUNK MAIL PORTRAITS
Exhibition visitors get their Junk Mail photographic portraits taken. more>

JUNK MAIL FACTS
100 million trees are cut down to produce junk mail annually. The majority of junk mail is produced from natural forests.more >

JUNK MAIL XMAS
A Junk Mail Xmas was presented in December 2008 utilizing the end-of the year catalogs and solicitations received in the mail. more >

JUNK MAIL WEAVINGS
"...restrained abstractions composed of woven strips of shredded advertisements". Kirsten Swenson, Art in America, April 2008 more >

BARBARA HASHIMOTO AT MONUMENT, APRIL 2008
Hashimoto creates a shredded junk mail installation in the lobby of The Ruth Page Center for the Arts during the run of The Seldoms' Monument. more>

INSTALLATION PERFORMANCE | CHICAGO 2007
In conjunction with the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Barbara Hashimoto presented the performance/installation, Shredded Junk Mail with Grand Piano. more >