SF Recycling and Disposal, aka the Dump, is an unlikely and in some ways ideal situation for an artist residency. The program was created as a way to highlight creative re-use of discarded objects and to raise public awareness of conservation and recycling. The Dump residency provides artists with a stipend and full-time access to a studio and the enormous Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center, from which they can remove anything they find. The residency culminates in a show lasting only two days—which is unfortunate when you can’t make the trip out in time, but makes each show feel like a secret, shared among a knowing few.

Bench Curl, 2007

Scott Oliver’s practice of dismantling and rebuilding found objects is a natural fit for this environment. Oliver’s interventions both disable the functionality of the objects he appropriates, and preserve some element of their original purpose. For example, a piece which he made for the Dump’s sculpture garden which maintains the structure of two benches connected to the picnic table between them, thwarts that use by curling up on itself in a graceful wave. A block made of beautifully shaped chair legs, truncated and shaved into a rough square, retains no seat but still appears solid enough to support a body. A sandwich board becomes a screen, patterned with cutaways so that its message is lost but its recognizable form remains.

The most striking piece is Core Column, a circular tower of wood, carpet, foam, insulation and other building materials, which looks like a core sample taken from a house that had been flattened. Approximately as tall as its maker, this object engages in a dialogue with Minimalist “specific objects,” as well as with the deconstructionist actions of Gordon Matta-Clark. Another work that engages with precedents from the 1960s and 70s is a pile of dust and debris in the corner of the studio, which Oliver collected by sweeping the sidewalk in front with a broom made from tree-trimmings. Some of the dirt he collected made its way into a large hourglass formed by two large water cooler bottles in a wooden armature. The remaining matter becomes a Robert Smithson-inspired non-site—an anti-monument to the Dump itself.

Core Column, 2007

Smaller objects that Oliver created during his residency include a pile of hand-shaped wooden “rocks,” in which the textures of particle board and the striations of plywood are revealed to be similar to those of sedimentary and metamorphic rock. A ladder sprouts branches, becoming a tree trunk. Clear plastic clothes hangers are arranged in a cascading chandelier that descends from the ceiling. A series of wall works incorporate found panels, into which threads are curve-stitched into a geometric lattice. The threads remain connected to their sources, rugs and blankets, which lay in piles on the floor below.

Wood Rocks!, 2007

Artists have an important civic role to play by emphasizing social responsibility through their working methods. Oliver’s work restores the act of making by hand to mass-produced objects, and invests them with the power to provoke thought. Each unique form that he creates draws attention to the callousness with which we accumulate, use and discard the things around us. One man's trash is another's treasure.

For more information about the SFR&D residency program, past artists-in-residence, the current artist-in-residence, and upcoming exhibitions visit www.sfrecycling.com.