Collage made entirely from things other people threw away.
by Sylvie Wren·🇦🇺Melbourne, Australia
Photographs of mail sent by Hard Rubbish Collage
One original collage per month, A5, made exclusively from material rescued from Melbourne hard-rubbish piles and op shops — old magazines, sheet music, tax documents, someone's abandoned photo album. Nothing is bought new, nothing is printed. Each piece comes with a card listing where each element came from, which is often the more interesting half. Mounted on board and sent flat.
One per calendar month, from the creator
August 2026 · just now
A subscriber asked whether it is right to work with found family photos. It is a fair question and I have thought about it a lot.
My rule: nothing identifiable goes out if there is any route back to a living person — no full names, no addresses, no recent material. Albums that arrive with names in them get the names cut out first, and those cuttings are destroyed rather than used.
What went out, month by month
Built from an entire album found in Brunswick. Nobody in it has been identified.
Twenty years of one household's receipts, arranged chronologically. Oddly moving.
Water-damaged piano scores from a nature strip in Coburg.
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