Curator: Olivia De Sanctis

The Value Village Poems are a series which combines found materials collected from several visits to the same Value Village location. Their title suggests a practice of hunting or searching for hand-me-down objects, but it also implies a practice of consumerism. Here the found texts and images are not purchased but rather captured and replicated through photographs, making them objects which are not only consumed but also transformed, re-visioned, relocated, and continually produced. Through using donated objects to collage together poems and images, The Value Village Poems rely on themes of domesticity, lineage, and identity. Moreover, while hunting for items it became apparent that many objects and texts had to do with relationships, spirituality or religious rites, cultural heritage, and tokens of kinship. All of these elements are juxtaposed here in order to create short poems which are (hopefully) intimate, humorous, intense and perhaps superficial.

Disclaimer: some of the pieces do features some images from outside of value village but these elements are minimal and still include some kind of found image.

Materials: printed text and image, acrylic paint, canvas, glue.