IN 2014 I MOVED TO IDAHO, AND
I BEGAN EXPLORING THE AREA’S
SAGEBRUSH-COVERED DESERT,
WHICH IS OPEN FOR PUBLIC USE.
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I quickly discovered it was popular with gun
owners, who used it for practice shooting.
Many of the targets they used were ordinary
consumer products, which were often left
behind. The Bureau of Land Management
describes these items as “trigger trash”.
I began collecting trigger trash, partly to help
with the cleanup effort, but mostly because it
looked interesting. I realised the items could
be classified as cultural artefacts, and decided
to photograph them in an archaeological
style. The background colours were sampled
from the desert where the items were found,
and represent the geography and its flora.
I collected about 150 items all up. I threw
most away, but I kept three: a cast-iron pan,
an exploded can of expanding foam insulation,
and a softball. For whatever reason I couldn’t
bring myself to get rid of them. Now they live
in my office at work.
There were about 30 sites I would visit
regularly. If a site was near a main road, it
would usually have more garbage – though
things would change on a weekly basis.
Trigger trash would appear out of nowhere,
then disappear days later. Sometimes this was
because someone decided to clean up. Other
times it was because the object was shot until
it was just a pile of debris. There was a large
TV I photographed over several months. It
kept getting smaller and smaller until it was
reduced to small pieces scattered in the dirt.
The targets obviously say something about the
people who left them – what kinds of laundry
detergent they use, or textbooks they study.
But collectively they refer to broader topics.
It’s impossible to make a body of work dealing
with guns without considering the political
context. I’m not suggesting all gun owners
have the potential to be mass murderers, but
those things are made to kill or injure. As the
mangled remains of everyday items, trigger
trash is evidence of that violence.
Are these items art? Marcel Duchamp said
that through selection and recontextualisation
you could impose the term ‘art’ on any
object. By that definition you could say these
are readymade sculptures. I saw them as
interesting-looking and loaded with meaning,
which is why I took them back to the studio.
But most ultimately ended up where they belong
- in the trash – so they are also garbage. •