Susan Subtle, the curator of the exhibition HELLO AGAIN!, visited my studio earlier in the year and saw my collection of cigarette packs and foil, and my bookcase and chair covered with silver cigarette pack foil, along with the mandala of cigarette pack warnings (see The Centerpiece) that I had laid out on my studio floor. She wondered aloud if I would be able to make a ‘reading table’ using this material for the Reference Room of HELLO AGAIN!. The table would be displayed and used while the exhibit was in Vancouver (June 20, 1998 to January 3, 1999. I foresaw no problem and offered to create such a table.
There were a sufficient number of cigarette packs in my studio to complete this project, but not the variety that I wanted. Shortly after the meeting with Susan Subtle, I prepared an e-mail 'call for help' with Send Garbage to Canada as the subject. This was sent to my e-mail friends, mail artists and internet contacts around the world. It explained the project and invited the receivers to participate by sending me one or two discarded cigarette packs from the country in which they lived. I also asked travel ling friends pick up any empty cigarette packs they happened to come across.
There was a table in my office which could be used, but it was not quite what I had in mind. What I really wanted was a genuine used library study table that I could recycle. A friend suggested I call the Surplus Equipment Recycling Facility at the University of British Columbia, which I did. After learning that they did indeed have what I was looking forward, my friend took me in his van to the facility and as he is aware of how little cash artists have, ended up purchasing the table as a gift to me and a contribution to the project.
