iInstitute of Contemporary Art, PhiladelphiaUniversity City
Waste Scenes: Maia Chao and Fred Schmidt-Arenales
A two-channel video made during a residency at a Philadelphia recycling centre, staging performative vignettes choreographed by discarded materials.
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A choir in high-visibility vests gathers around a front loader's scoop as if on rehearsal risers, then lets the song fall apart, dropping words and stretching the tempo. It was filmed at RAIR, an artist residency inside a working demolition-waste recycling plant in Northeast Philadelphia.
The piece is one two-channel video, 40 minutes 39 seconds long, reopening ICA's Project Space. One channel runs vignettes scored from the trash: managers in power suits arguing over a layoff directive, office chairs and potted plants set up as waiting rooms on rubbish heaps. The other cuts in found media, including a human resources training video that came out of the dump, which is roughly where most of us file ours.
Reviewing its 2025 run at Oregon Contemporary, Oregon ArtsWatch found no clear narrative and praised its "happenstance comedy through apparent absurdity." You sit through scenes that never explain themselves, so give it the full running time. Entry is free, Wednesday to Sunday 11am to 6pm, Thursdays until 8pm.
Look for
The front-loader choir
Singer Dan Schwartz and the Philadelphia Voices of Pride choir stand around a front loader's scoop and break their song down until it is unrecognisable.
The layoff argument
Two managers in power suits, played by Bellisant Corcoran-Mathe and Parker Sera, argue over what a directive to lay off employees actually means.
The rubbish-heap waiting rooms
Empty office chairs and potted plants arranged into makeshift office waiting rooms in the middle of piles of trash.
The found training tape
Snippets of a human resources training video, also pulled from the dump, cut against still images of book covers and illustrations.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
About 41 min
Skip if
You want objects to look at: this is a single 40-minute video.
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Image credits
7
- Waste Scenes: Maia Chao and Fred Schmidt-ArenalesCourtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
- Marketing Medicine: The Art of Selling a CureCourtesy of Mütter Museum
- Creative Processing: Art in TherapyCourtesy of Mütter Museum
- Creating a City of MedicineCourtesy of Mütter Museum
- Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphiaajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Penn Museumajay_suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Mütter Museum颐园居 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0