Viy | The Incomplete Manifesto for Refuse (2022) and Refuse All Around Us (2024)
The Incomplete Manifesto for Refuse (2022)
Refuse (re-fyüs): something that is discarded as worthless or useless
Refuse (ri-fyüz): to express determination not to; to decline to submit to
The slight variation of this word brings a deeper level and understanding of the other. Refuse refuses. No matter how much we try to keep the refuse tidy, compartmentalized, spruced up, or invisible it continues to accumulate and infiltrate our everyday lives. Instead of putting our efforts into solving the waste problem, we have become more concerned with strategies of outsourcing this burden onto someone else. We know that there are both ethical and environmental problems with trash, but do we really understand these problems?
The problem isn’t with trash, but with our relationship to objects, our willingness to accept things as trash and accept our roles in the production of trash. The current economic system relies on planned obsolescence and the production of refuse to create economic growth.
We must buy to keep the illusion of the machine going. Don’t think about the waste. Just buy and throw away, buy, throw away, buy, throw away. Don’t think at all. To tackle refuse we must refuse.
To understand refuse as a source of potential. The problem with trash isn’t that it exists but that we don’t know what to do with it. Trash doesn’t go away each week because the sanitation workers come and take it away, send it off to landfills where we don’t have to see it or think about it. We can no longer trust the systems in place to properly care for the excess of commodities we are forced to consume, we must deal with them ourselves. We must immerse ourselves in refuse and refusal.
Refuse All Around Us (2024)
Re-fyüs: something that is discarded as worthless or useless
Typically meaning trash, re-fyüs is something that is unwanted by an individual, thus deeming it as re-fyüs
Re-fyüs has no value , it is seen as worthless or unimportant
Re-fyüs can be an object, an idea, or a person
Re-fyüs is debris, it is abnormalities, it is filth, it is abject, it is used
Re-fyüs is what is left behind, what is forgotten, what is ignored
What enables us to ignore the re-fyüs we don’t want to see?
Re-fyüz: join or blend to form a single entity again
Re-fyüz requires two or more things already in existence and fusing them into one new thing. Though this thing is new, it still contains elements and properties of the original, though to what extent depends on the means of the fusion. The ‘re’ in re-fyüz suggests that these things have already been fused once, but have been deconstructed and are facing a re-fyüzing.
Re-fyüz can be physically taking two or more items and combining them. Re-fyüz can be thoughts and ideas, merging, growing, and adapting as we learn more.
Re-fyüz can be social gatherings, the coming together of people and the making of experiences.
The materials and process of the re-fyüzing is just as important as the final product.
What happens in the act of re-fyüzing?
What is lost and what is gained?
How do we know when something needs to be broken apart?
How do we know what to do with it after it’s been broken?
Ri-fyüz: to express determination not to; to decline to submit to
Ri-fyüz is more than just saying no, it is the specific and intentional act of resisting
There is both ri-fyüz in change and in remaining the same
There is ri-fyüz in learning and in ignorance
Ri-fyüz ultimately looks different to every individual. There is ri-fyüz in everything, but one cannot ri-fyüz everything
How do we know what to ri-fyüz?
How do we stay firm in our ri-fyüzal while remaining open to learning and changing?
How can you ri-fyüz in a way that will improve your life and the lives of those around you?
Refuse in all its forms are fundamentally connected to one another. We can find ri-fyüz in re-fyüz, and we can use re-fyüz to ri-fyüz re-fyüs.
Refuse is about control. We control what we label as trash, we control what we decline to submit to, we control what we fuse together.
Refuse in making mistakes and giving yourself the space to learn from them.
Refuse in community building, in taking care of each other.
Refuse in sustainability, in taking care of the land that we have been graced with.
Refuse in making do, in doing what we can with the things that we have.
Refuse in queerness, in staying authentic and true to ourselves.
Refuse into growing and distributing food, in nourishing ourselves and others.
Refuse in making your own clothes, in having individuality.
Refuse in taking care of yourself, in persisting despite all odds.
There is Refuse in sharing, in being kind to those around us.
There is Refuse in having hope, in continuing to persevere despite all odds.
There is Refuse in maintenance, in taking care of the things in our lives that are important to us.
There is Refuse in decay, in the breaking down of things that no longer serve us.
Refuse the narrow definitions of value and use that are assigned to objects by capitalism.
Refuse what relies on waste for profit.
Refuse what is rejected as trash, what is seen as useless and de-nied the chance to be useful.
Challenge, contest, and celebrate the previously wasted.
Gather the refuse being shit out by the machine and create from it objects of delight or utility.
Refuse the non-functional byproduct of the urban condition. Refuse economic growth and its dependence on the production of waste.
Refuse to submit to the illusion of the machine.
Refuse to let your senses go numb to the overwhelming amount of detritus we face day to day.
Each night gather the refuse that you produced that day. Look at it.
Explore it. Learn about it. Figure out what it’s made out of. Break it down. Prepare it for new use. Turn it into something.
Use everything you can and make everything you can.
Refuse everything you can.
Go outside, walk around, find all the nooks and crannies that trash accumulates in, look at it, photograph it, think about it, what’s its story?
How did it get there?
If we looked at our trash as an archive of ourselves, what story would it tell about us?
What would happen if we collectively put all our knowledge and skills toward transforming the junk that we produce? What would that look like? What could we teach each other? What could we create?
How do we hold ourselves accountable for the waste we create?
How do we hold our community accountable? How about corporations?
What does embodied creative activism look like?
How do we acknowledge and hold ourselves accountable as individuals and organizations focused on community building for the waste that we produce? How do we see the potential in it and work to minimize the waste we create?
Can we ever live in a world that isn’t motivated by profit? What would that look like?
How can you refuse in a way that will improve your life and the lives of those around you?
“In order to live, I must consume ... the exchange of a life for a life, the endless cycling between my body and the body of the world. How do we consume in a way that does justice to the lives that we take?” - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
How do we maintain in a society obsessed with ‘economic’ opportunity and growth? Of convenience and consumption?
How do we maintain and grow simultaneously?
Viy, pronounced /v/, is a non-binary, multi-media artist. Their practice focuses on the materiality and history of objects, breaking them down to better understand them so they can be reconfigured and re-contextualized as art objects. Interested in refuse and refusal, their work comes from their own trash and items discarded by others, refusing the notion that these objects are worthless and instead seeing them as full of artistic potential. Most recently their practice has been focused in handmade papermaking, fiber based media, and relational aesthetics.