When does food become trash? Is it the moment when it is thrown into the trash bin?

to kosie’s video work titled trash was inspired by her experiences as a waiter working breakfast shifts at various hotels in Helsinki. to kosie couldn’t believe the amount of food she was throwing away after hotel guests had finished their buffet-style breakfasts. Taking home the perfectly edible and untouched food was forbidden, so in the evenings in order to save money, to kosie would go dumpster diving and take food from supermarket trash bins.

Using a spy camera, to kosie decided to record the two opposite actions she was practicing almost daily. She hid the camera under a collar of her shirt and recorded food going straight out of her hands into the trash bin, and then in turn being picked up from bins during dumpster diving excursions. Through the two parallel videos compiled of the recorded material, to kosie’s ‘trash’ sheds light on the complexity and secretive nature of the food waste issue.

︎ to kosie