Unmaking Waste: Transforming Production and Consumption in Time and Place (May 2015, Adelaide Australia)

Dates: 21-24 May 2015
Location: Zero Waste SA Research Centre for Sustainable Design and Behaviour, University of South Australia, Adelaide
Website: www.unmakingwaste2015.org
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 17 October 2014

Waste is created when we no longer value something we create, possess or use. Barriers to prematurely discarding goods and resources have steadily fallen in recent years. Easy credit, low prices, instant online access, and a 24 hour promotional media all reinforce an expanding consumerism.

While much effort has gone into researching and implementing successful technical strategies for reducing waste and emissions, accelerating rates of consumption are undermining these efforts. It is clear that we need new systems-based approaches to reduce this excess consumption, including the excesses of our ‘waste-making’, to generate a more sustainable circular economy.

This conference invites participants to explore new approaches to reduce the speed, volume and impacts of ‘waste-ready’ global consumerism.

The Life Of The Object: An Experimental Workshop And Conference On Production, Consumption, and Creative Reuse In American Culture (Apr 2011, Madison USA)

The Mid-America American Studies Association (MAASA) Conference at The University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sponsored by the UW Art History Department, the Material Culture Certificate Program, the Material Culture Focus Group, the Art History Grad Forum, and the Chipstone Foundation.
April 7-11, 2011
Deadline for submission: 15 October 2010

Historians and cultural critics who study objects have long focused on the relationships between production and consumption, but these dynamics deserve reexamination in today’s object-flooded world. At the same time, the concept and aesthetic of reuse is enjoying the spotlight in contemporary fashion and design, but has been employed for many years by architects, artists, and the American public as a strategy for survival as well as a political statement. This interdisciplinary experimental workshop and conference invites questions related to the core themes of production, consumption, and reuse in American history and contemporary life.