About the Cigarette Piece

I am interested in the paradoxical nature of smoking: an action that disrupts and formulates routine simultaneously, that is pleasant and repulsive, meditative and stress-producing, comforting and destructive. Cigarettes filters which are made out of cotton are tinted as a result of a series of repetitive inhalations by the smoker. In some cases the color of the butts is also determined by their subsistence under different weather conditions. By collecting, slicing, and attaching together the cigarette butts, I gave these disposable devices an unexpected and prolonged life. I created a skin like an animal fur that is the product of different phenomena – including natural production, corporate manufacture and advertisement, personal consumption, and weather conditions. At a first glance or from far away, the skin seems like raw material for the fabrication of luxury items like handbags or shoes, but when examined closely, it is repulsive to sight and smell.

Even though the formal qualities of this material are relevant, the performance aspects involved in the fabrication of it are most important: from the act of smoking to the discarding of the butts, to my collecting them to my assembling them into a skin. The Cigarette Butt Piece is an artifact made of repetitive and automatic actions and its appearance is mostly developed by chance.