It may not be the Mona Lisa, but an old, empty milk carton and other trash we toss away can also tell an interesting story about our culture, our history and ourselves, according to a new exhibit in Stockholm called “Garbage.”
“We are ethnologists and we are interested in how people live, and we found it interesting to look into how they act when it comes to garbage,” says Christina Matsson, who heads the Nordiska museum in central Stockholm that recently opened a whole exhibit on the topic.
The first and most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the samples of rubbish gathered through the ages is that our garbage has changed dramatically in step with our own changing times.
Photo: AFP
照片：法新社
An 18th-century pair of discarded trousers says a lot.
It was worn until faded and threadbare, repeatedly mended, darned, and patched until it was finally used to help to fill in a large crack in a wall and block a cold draft.
Compare that to a pair of 2010 hip, Swedish branded jeans, which have been industrially “pre-used” and ripped, and carries a sales notices informing the consumer that the “new” product has “half the life but double the look.”
Photo: AFP
照片：法新社
Another stark contrast can be seen in a modest, antique doll from the Swedish Lapland, dressed simply in a ragged piece of cloth cut from a worn-out old curtain.
The caption below the doll showcase reads: “Young Swedes today on average have 536 toys during the course of their childhoods.”
Reusable, cotton sanitary napkins, broken china repaired with metal staples, carpets made entirely out of used and left-over fabric scraps: recycling is no modern concept — in the squalid 18th and 19th centuries it was the norm.
Photo: AFP
照片：法新社
“What we want to show is that during that period, nothing, or virtually nothing was garbage,” explains Lena Landerberg, the exhibit curator.
(AFP)
根據瑞典斯德哥爾摩一個名為「廢棄物」的展覽，沒有「蒙娜麗莎」名畫，而是一個舊牛奶空盒與其他被丟棄的垃圾，它們都可以述說與文化、歷史和我們切身相關的有趣故事。
斯德哥爾摩市中心北歐博物館負責人克里斯提娜‧馬特森表示：「我們是民族學者，並對人們的生活方式感興趣，我們發現透過廢棄物來觀察人類行為很有趣。」
Photo: AFP
照片：法新社
從這些古往今來蒐集到的廢棄物樣本中，得出的第一個且最明顯結論是，隨著時代變遷，廢棄物也出現劇烈轉變。
一條被丟棄的十八世紀褲子，述說許多故事。
這條褲子被穿到顏色已褪且織布已薄，重複地修改、縫補與補綴直到它最終被用於填塞牆壁的一個大裂縫以阻擋冷風。
相較於二零一零年的時髦牛仔褲，瑞典廠牌的牛仔褲通常都在工業上「事先被用過」並且被扯破，在銷售吊牌上告知消費者的標示寫道，這個「新」產品「雖壽命減半，但雙倍好看。」
另一個鮮明對比是瑞典拉普蘭一個樸素的骨董娃娃，它只穿一塊廢舊窗簾剪下的襤褸破布。
這個娃娃展示櫥窗下的說明寫道，「現今瑞典年輕人在他們童年成長過程中，平均（每人）有五百三十六個玩具。」
可以重複使用的棉布衛生棉，以金屬補釘修繕過的破瓷器，以及完全是以使用過和裁剩布料製成的地毯，這些顯示回收再利用並非現代概念，而是在骯髒的十八與十九世紀就已是常態。
負責策劃展覽的利納‧蘭德伯格解釋：「我們要傳達的是，那個時期沒有或是幾乎沒有廢棄物。」
（法新社／翻譯：林亞蒂）
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