Gently Used (2018)

TV broadcast (45:00)

collaboration with Zoë Chao

Provincetown TV

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Recorded in the basement of their childhood home, Chao and her sister sell hoarded family belongings, interviewing their parents and recounting the social histories of each item. An improvisational and endurance-based exercise, they take on the absurd task of generating monetary value and appeal for these junk items through sustained banter and dialogue. The work explores personal questions of social aspiration, material excess, sustainability, and family history, while also serving as a genuine attempt to deaccession and question their enduring attachment to things. 

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As a mechanism of decluttering, the work was not entirely successful: a few items sold to strangers on eBay while several others were re-purchased through the online bidding system by Chao's parents, who found that the work renewed their interest in these forgotten objects. In fact, during the first exhibition of this work, Chao's father managed to acquire a new table that was property of the gallery and used for the installation. Chao paid her parents back for the cost of their bids and did not make a profit. 

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