The Memory Collection: 20 Objects from the 20th Century

The plastic garbage bag symbolizes the maturing in our 20th century culture from our tradition-bound socializing values to ones of individualizing expediency. Since disposal is the ultimate tenant of ownership, the hiding of our disposable selves from the rest of our society through the use of such containers, allows us then also the liberty to shed our bonds to that society in the same invisible and secretive way. We can now hide from our neighbours all that we do not wish them to see. We can keep from them all that was previously venial, ugly and socially unaccept-able. We allow them to see that we have a life and existence, but not which parts make us who we are, and how we got there. We have become shadows to them and to others around us, all the while remaining true to ourselves. The socializing overseer of our surroundings has become meaningless in the context of the new individual. We are no longer members of our neighbourhood or society; we have become instead individual-ized units in the geography of the area, and ultimately in the entire cultural, political and economic national landscape. We have become autonomous, independent, and answerable to no one... save ourselves.

The plastic bag first appeared in the late ’60s, and we can factually trace our submergence to such one-person rule from that precise juncture. How we handle this new independ-ence will play out before us in the new millennium.