The genesis of the Privacy Council project was inspired by a number of mind-boggling statistics: AMERICANS RECEIVE 77 BILLION PIECES OF JUNK MAIL ANNUALLY and THE AVERAGE AMERICAN WILL SPEND EIGHT MONTHS OF HIS/HER LIFE HANDLING JUNK MAIL. Statistics like these have taken hold of me both visually and physically. I have witnessed the stacks of collected junk mail and the resulting piles of shredded material grow and take over my workspace at both home and work.

White Trash by Barbara Hashimoto

American artist Barbara Hashimoto works with junk mail in her provocative and extremely popular installations. To date she has created the Junk Mail Experiment, Junk Mail with Grand Piano, Junk Mail Landscape and Junk Mail Xmas art installations. Barbara said she spent one year hand-shredding the collected junk mail, resulting in 3,000 cubic feet of shredded material.

To me, Barbara’s piece symbolizes the overload we all feel in our lives—being smothered by literally mountains of paper junk mail, office waste, and SPAM email. Her piece is a visual representation of the waste to which we all contribute—knowingly or unknowingly. For me, becoming part of the Privacy Council is my first step towards taking back that mountain.

-Michelle Amos