TRASHLIGHT

You can learn a lot about somebody by looking through their trash.

Trashlight merges two household icons—the floor lamp and the trashcan. This unlikely combination brings the user’s garbage out into the domestic setting and illuminates it for examination by yourself and others. Trashlight takes transparency to an extreme— nothing is secret anymore, not even your waste.

What happens when we are forced to interact with our trash after we have “thrown it out”? What does our garbage say about us—are there things we are ashamed of admitting we consume? What happens when we have to “curate” our trash—burying things we want to hide and surfacing things we’re proud of? Finally, does putting our trash in the spotlight force us to further consider the nature of consumption and disposability?

+ Originally created for "Uncomfortable Conversation"—an exhibition of conceptual objects curated by Design Glut for NYC Design Week 2010.

+ Trashlight is currently in prototype form. Interested parties may contact Craighton Berman for production inquiries.