Taking In The Trash, Piles Collective Closing & Artist Talks
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:DJoin us for the closing reception of Taking in the Trash. Artist Talks at 8pm. The night will also feature a DJ set, as well as beverages and snacks.
Since 2023 Piles Collective has been gathering and documenting trash on the streets of San Francisco and transforming it into art. Along the way they’ve hosted immersive shows and workshops to involve the community in celebration and creation. From a tech office turned underground club, Battery Godfrey, Uzay Gallery, MAG Galleries and now Frontier Tower, each show pushes collective members to expand their skills and push materials and concepts further.
Featured artist Emin Israfil brings the perspective of Rubbish, a San Francisco practice rooted in years of street cleanup and close observation. His work in the show treats litter not as background noise but as a record of movement, habit, and care.
For Taking in the Trash, Piles Collective teamed up with the SOMA West Community Benefit District (CBD) to source street trash at scale. Founded in 2020, SOMA West CBD employs 39 workers to collect over 825,000 pounds of trash annually from the area between 6th Street and South Van Ness Avenue.
“Other CBD’s get to program Salesforce Park, or bring in 30,000 tulips to Union Square. At SOMA West, we mostly pick up trash, so when Liz and Jules proposed taking our trash to make art, that is an infinite resource that we were happy to provide.”
We worked closely with the teams to source objects that inspired us and specifically clothing. Thanks to support of SF Arts Commission Grant, Liz Cahill was able to help fund a bonus for the workers to gather clothing.
The finished artworks are just one part of the journey. Alongside trash collection efforts we’ve hosted and attended clothing swaps, administered “Buy Nothing” Facebook groups, formed relationships with civic leaders, sanitation workers and neighbors - housed and unhoused. In 2024 California enacted the most aggressive Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law for textiles in the United States SB 707. Piles Collective wants to enter these larger conversations and scale our efforts.
Guest List
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