Toxic Leftovers of Collecting

Since the 1990s, collecting practices and associated issues such as contamination and toxicity have increasingly come into focus due to the growing ecological and political relevance of objects and materials. Little epistemic relevance, however, has been attributed to the leftovers: They challenge collecting institutions emerging during transformative processes of differentiation, purification, and reevaluation as well as in transgressions of taxonomic, disciplinary, architectural, and institutional boundaries.

A specific focus on this marginalia is the audiovisual research Toxic Leftovers of Collecting. It accompanies and analyzes cleaning and transformation processes of contaminated materials. The aim is to give insights into those relational contexts of more-than-human ecologies and their tracings, as well as to planetary conditions regarding toxins ultimately accumulated in landfills.

As a case study the audiovisual research on cleaning processes of asbestos-contaminated vintage cars belonging to the collection of a Swiss foundation outlines the field of tension in which collecting activities are fundamentally situated today, especially in the case of toxicity of collection items: a balancing act between preservation and elimination, between restoration, remediation and disposal. It means a deepened examination of dangers caused by pollutants such as asbestos, arsenic, lindane or heavy metals, which are built into objects due to their properties or were used for conservation purposes.

The results of the research are summarized in a text-image-based essay which has been realized during a research exchange at the Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity of the Humboldt University Berlin, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Scientific Exchange Grant) and published in Museale Reste of the series Bildwelten des Wissens (De Gruyter 2022).