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Edited by Timothy Corrigan Correll and Patrick Arthur Polk with essays by R. Mark Livengood and Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos

On a daily basis remnants, scraps, rubbish, and junk are filtered through both formal and informal salvage operations in urban centers throughout the world. The essays included in this volume—”Muffler Men, Muñecos and Other Welded Wonders: Occupational Sculpture from Automotive Debris,” “Streetwise: The Mafundi of Dar es Salaam,” and “Castoff/Outcast: Living on the Street”—explore the process of recycling within three distinct environments. Each of the studies is linked by an examination of how mass-produced materials are reenvisioned and reused in ways that are dramatically different from their originally intended purposes. Timothy Correll and Patrick Polk address the assembly of alluring, eye-catching, and often humorous advertisements made by automotive repairmen in Southern California; R. Mark Livengood investigates the fashioning of implements by craftsmen (mafundi) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Cecilia Loschiavo Dos Santos documents the construction of impromptu shelters by street people living in Los Angeles, Tokyo, and São Paulo. What emerges is a remarkable juxtaposition of diverse material behaviors informing the “lived experiences” of residents of several cities across the globe.

8.5 x 11 inches, 148 pages
184 color and 11 b/w illustrations
1999
ISBN 0-930741-75-7, paper, $29