is aninterdisciplinary artist and designer currently studying Interactive Media Arts at NYU. Her work embraces unconventional, often overlooked materials to create sculptures and installations that reflect her relationship with consumer culture and her personal connection to hoarded objects. Each piece is an exploration of her own habits, inviting viewers to consider the unseen beauty and agency of mundane items.
“Untitled”
A collection of receipts, organza, saftety pins
2023
Photographed by Karyn Chong
“Untitled”
An array of hoarded items
2022


These wearable sculptures consist of 'throw-away' items, including receipts, tags, wrappers, and other miscellaneous objects that I’ve felt compelled to hoard. By hand-sewing each piece onto the garment, I created a long and strenuous process that offered me a space to reflect on each item’s place in my life—as well as my place in its short-lived existence.

Untitled
An array of “useless” items
2024



JANE: Growing up, I felt a constant push and pull between the minimalism enforced by my mother and my own compulsive hoarding habits. This created a duality within me—a minimalist on the surface yet deeply attached to objects at heart. I oscillate between acquiring and containing. In this work, I let my hoard take over, allowing it to flow and even overwhelm the space in an organized way, balancing the order I crave with the beauty I find in these 'useless' objects.


BASTA:Your piece seems to explore themes of accumulation, possession, and the relationship between humans and material objects. How does your personal experience with hoarding inform or influence this exploration?

J: From a young age, I was deeply fascinated by my surroundings and the material world. I have a hazy memory from kindergarten of spending recess picking wood chips from the sandbox and bottle caps from the grass. I would come home with pockets full of discoveries, only to be scolded by my mother for collecting what she called 'garbage.' Yet, I secretly stored these treasures in boxes and jars hidden behind my closet. These seemingly insignificant wood chips and mass-produced bottle caps spoke to me—I sensed an 'energetic vitality' (Bennett, 5) within them, something that simply couldn’t be discarded. As I grew, so did my collection, evolving into an unconscious habit.

J: Inspired by Jane Bennett’s idea in Vibrant Matter that all objects—animate or inanimate—deserve 'attentiveness, or even “respect”' (preface ix), I began to view my possessions not merely as objects but as participants in my life. These items aid us in our daily routines and possess their own agency, influencing and even controlling our behaviors and emotions. With my growing collection of receipts, tags, wrappers, and other miscellaneous items, I created a series of wearable sculptures—a reflection of my consumption habits after moving to New York. It is also a commentary on a throw-away culture that prioritizes convenience over sustainability. Many of these mundane items, constantly discarded, have become a habit ingrained in society. I believe these items hold more potential than what they were intended for, which is why I often incorporate found objects into my work.


B: How does the piece relate to the concepts explored in Jane Bennett's Vibrant Matter? Is there anything unique or distinctive about your artistic techniques or materials that you'd like to highlight regarding this particular work?

J: The most recent work in my 'Hoarding' series draws inspiration from a lecture by political theorist Jane Bennett titled 'Powers of the Hoard: Artistry and Agency in a World of Vibrant Matter.' Bennett redefines compulsive hoarding, shifting from its usual classification as a mental illness to frame it instead as a psycho-social phenomenon, where 'differently abled bodies' possess 'special sensory access to the call of things.' This concept resonated with me deeply, as I have felt a strong attraction to seemingly useless objects from a young age. I see these items in great detail, and they 'demand' not to be thrown away but instead to be taken home. For hoarders, the dialectical relationship between subject and object is inverted; the 'thing' seems to exert a kind of 'power' over us. Often, hoarders do not feel as though they are in charge of their hoards. They describe it as 'auto-accumulation,' as if the objects themselves are responsible for hoarding and gradually 'taking over' until the situation becomes 'out of hand.' These items seem to have their own momentum, an impulse to grow. Thus, the hoard becomes neither mere possessions nor tools but an essential part of the individual—like an organ, a vital part of the self.


Jane Liu - @janeliu
Interview by Katie Kern