Currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is the installation "Waste Not" by the Beijing-based artist Song Dong. A collaboration conceived of with his mother, the installation consists of the complete contents of her home. All of these items were collected for over fifty years, including the wooden frame of her house. Song's mother, typical of the generation that lived through the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, abided by the Chinese concept of wu jin qi yong, or "waste not." The installation, ranging from bottles and pots to blankets, egg containers, books, shoes, and styrofoam, forms a cityscape built out of the contents and baggage of the past. What i found so interesting about this piece is that it took 5o years to produce. Some artwork is done in a few hours or days and it is a masterpiece, but this was slowly put together over an enormous period of time. Some works are quickly put together but as you can tell from the period it started and was finished this one was slowly built one addition after another, which took enormous patience.
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