WASTED: Artist Alex White Mazzarella’s New Exhibit Explores Social Inequality Using Recycled Materials

111 bottles and one shoe: the components that comprise artist <a href="http://www.lamazza.com/">Alex White Mazzarella</a>'s latest piece may seem mundane, but are impactful when they work together, just like the immigrant workers they represent. Called "A Working Class", the assemblage is currently on view at Japanese gallery <a href="http://resobox.com/">Resobox</a> in <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/index.php?s=long+island+city">Long Island City</a> along with a selection of Mazzarella's older works in an exhibition entitled <a href="http://resobox.com/wasted/">WASTED</a>. We recently caught up with Mazzarella to find out more about WASTED, his use of recycled materials, and his related projects, which endeavor to bring attention to marginalized communities throughout the world. Read on for some of his thoughts.

Mazzarella's older works layer found materials like cigarette boxes, tomato can wrappers and photographs to create collages for the viewer to interpret for themselves.

<h3><big>INHABITAT: The show is really centered on "A Working Class", your most recent piece, which is also a big departure from your other works. Can you tell us a little about that piece?</big></h3> <big><strong>Alex White Mazzarella: </strong></big>"A Working Class" is a wall installation of plastic oil, liquor nips and beverage containers excavated out of the underserved streets of <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/index.php?s=willets+point">Willets Point, Queens</a>. It speaks towards the American working class that is being held with little regard by groups and politics that use their power to transfer their wealth to the 1%. It's complicated as there are drainage issues, but fact is the city sees this as a land grab to make money for their <a href="http://www.nycedc.com/project/willets-point-development">development</a>. This is free enterprise - what this country is supposedly built to achieve - but being undermined by private interests and the city that is not treating this class as equals. In fact, a shop owner and friend of mine from Willets Point now tells me that India is now feeling more like “America” than the United States does. Nevermind service - he says in Willets Point, he’s constantly getting fined and harassed by city workers rather than assisted. Meanwhile high-rise luxury condominiums are getting 25-year tax abatements. Preferential treatment for the rich by the rich - income distributions continue to skew. “A Working Class” is a tribute to the shadow population of Willets Point who continue to struggle against marginalization and disregard. Economy and society grow when they are nurtured to grow - our taxes used to nurture our own growth. Instead, income is becoming more and more disparate everyday as the mechanics of our economy have been set up to deliver more and more of the wealth to that upper % of the economy.

<h3><big>INHABITAT: What was your main inspiration for WASTED? What are the underlying messages you wanted to convey?</big></h3> <big><strong>Alex White Mazzarella: </strong></big>Wasted is a way of defining what I’ve been doing through <a href="http://www.lamazza.com/">my artwork </a>over the past three years.

<h3><big>INHABITAT: Can you tell us a little bit about why you choose to work with recycled materials over new? </big></h3> <big><strong>Alex White Mazzarella: </strong></big>Largely because these materials come out of certain processes, and systems and life functions around them and because of them. They are the materials that make things go round, and are even indicative of the time and age in which we are living. Seems to me that these materials and objects can likewise really carry stories with them if used intelligently to articulate stories, emotions and narratives. <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/index.php?s=recycled+materials">Recycled materials</a> also mean that people are familiar with them because they come in and out of people’s lives. The idea is that, when taken out of a certain context and put into another, the emotional familiarity sticks and perhaps can bring people a little bit closer to what is being articulated. We live in a material world. And as so much runs through materials, the idea is to trace those materials backwards into the systems and metaphors that surround them.

<h3><big>INHABITAT: WASTED contains works you created while in multiple locations in the world. Did those locations have anything in common that influenced your art?</big></h3> <big><strong>Alex White Mazzarella: </strong></big>For Detroit, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi">Dharavi</a> and Willets Point, yes there was a commonality – they were all marginalized places and populations.

<h3><big>INHABITAT: In addition to being an artist, you're also the founder of ARTEFACTING. Can you tell us about that organization?</big></h3> <big><strong>Alex White Mazzarella: </strong></big><a href="http://www.artefacting.com">Artefacting</a> is very much a collaborative process that uses creativity and social capital to create responses to challenges…

<h3><big>INHABITAT: What is the main goal you would like to achieve through WASTED?</big></h3> <big><strong>Alex White Mazzarella: </strong></big>Raise awareness for the struggles of the workers of Willets Point. Exhibit how my work has evolved and matured over the course of three years. Allow people to contemplate how our consumer culture of more is resulting in wasting - whether its natural ecology, our emotional balance, or social equity. Lastly, to find homes for the artwork.

<h3><big>INHABITAT: Do you have any other projects on the horizon that we should know about?</big></h3> <big><strong>Alex White Mazzarella: </strong></big>Yes, I'm going to <a href="http://www.artefacting.com/reconciling-ecologies-in-the-millennium-city/">Delhi in April</a> for an artists residency. <span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Then looking to go to Cologne to collaborate on a performance-based project that will engage diverse individuals of all different classes in an inquiry into work, labor, and capital.</span>

If you would like to see WASTED for yourself, the exhibition will be on display at Resobox until April 4th.