Selling the Right to Name a Pile of Garbage, 2014

1980年代に世界的に報道され貧困の象徴とされたスモーキーマウンテンを代表とするフィリピンのマニラ郊外に複数あるゴミ処理場のゴミ山の命名権を販売する。政府は、国イメージダウンを恐れ一部の処理場を閉鎖したり、地図には載らないいわば名無しの土地である。また同時に崩落事故を起こしたり、強制退去させられた住民が別の処理場に移り住むなど、根本的な問題は未解決のままである。このプロジェクトでは、フィリピンの法律による焼却施設の禁止よって増えるゴミ埋め立て地問題とその限界、根源的にはあらゆる人間活動から生まれるゴミの行き先である終末処理場を、命名権ビジネスの現場に置き換える。現場で従事する労働者や管理会社などとの交渉も含め、社会の負の存在と思われがちなゴミの山を錬金術的に資本主義的にお金を生もうと試みる、その実態の伴わない商売から生まれる貨幣価値と土地所有の矛盾と利権のぶつかりあいから、人間にとって固有の権利であると考えるられる所有の諸問題について再考する。

Niwa will sell the rights to name a pile of garbage in the suburbs of Manila, the Philippines represented by the Smokey Mountain, which was reported globally in the 1980s as a symbolized poverty. The government feared the bad reputation of the country, and led them to close some processing plants or make the land a so-called unnamed land that are not officially on a map. At the same time, the fundamental problems remain unsolved such as collapse accidents and residents forcibly evacuated end up them moving to another processing place. In this project, Niwa focuses on the increasing insufficient landfill problem caused by the Philippine law prohibiting incineration facilities and its limit and place a naming rights business in the heart of the final resting place of the garbage, which is fundamentally produced as a result of any human activities. Including the negotiations with the workers and managers who work at the sites, the artist attempts to turn those piles of garbage, which is often thought to be a negative aspect of the society, into money in an alchemically, capitalistic way. From the clashes of rights and the contradiction between the monetary value that is created from this unrealistic business and land ownership, this project reexamines various problems on ownership which is considered an individual right for human beings.