This annotated bibliography provides an overview of literature relevant to exploring representations of the McRobies Gully landfill site in Tasmania. The literature is divided into three sections: geographies of waste, aesthetics and ecological relations, and making landscapes. Key sources discuss waste as dependent on human culture rather than an inherent quality; critique linear understandings of waste in favor of complex networks; and analyze landscape as encoding political power and shaping human relationships with place over time through complex interrelations. Gaps in the literature regarding non-human animals' relationships with waste are also noted.

1. FSA 413 Annotated Bibliography Felix Wilson
Annotated Bibliography
The project Waste in Place: The McRobies Gully Tip as Landscape will use
representations of the McRobies Gully landfill site in South Hobart to explore
contemporary understandings of landscape and its relationship to the
aesthetics of human and non-human relations.
Humans, animals, birds and others interact in ways that challenge
conventional perceptions of ecology on the landfill site. Issues relating to
ecology and landscape representation are particularly contested in Tasmania
and this site affords possibilities for recalibrating shared aesthetic
understandings of waste and the relations between humans and non-humans.
This annotated bibliography provides an overview of literature relevant to the
project, and is divided into three thematic sections. Geographies of waste
outlines significant theoretical works related to waste, beginning with the
personal and moving toward systematic and universal concerns. Secondly,
aesthetics and ecological relations contrasts two key texts that discuss
environmental aesthetics, the differing approaches help to define important
issues for the project. Finally, making landscapes discusses theoretical
perspectives on landscape as a concept in philosophy and art, which will
inform decisions about strategies for representing the site.
The conclusion discusses the implications for the project, and identifies issues
not discussed in the literature.
Geographies of Waste
Calvino, I, 2009, 'La Poubelle Agréée', in The Road to San
Giovanni, Penguin, London.
Calvino’s short autobiographical essay takes its title from the colloquial name
for the container used for waste collection in Paris, and as its starting point
the seemingly simple act of taking out the rubbish for collection. Calvino
explores the metaphysical implications of discarding an object as waste, and
theorises this process as an act of definition that creates a boundary between
what can be considered integral to the self and what is other.
Calvino recognises waste as something dependent upon human culture and
social circumstances for creation, not as an inherent quality of any object. In

2. FSA 413 Annotated Bibliography Felix Wilson
establishing the social and intimate as the point of waste creation and as a
basis for drawing a boundary between what is human and what is non-human
or alien, Calvino provides an analogy that can be extended to wider
understandings of waste in contemporary society, particularly to the landfill
site and its relationship to the built environment of the city.
Hawkins, G 2006, The ethics of waste: how we relate to rubbish,
Rowman & Littlefield Pub Incorporated, Lanham, Md.
Hawkins book is a discussion of the personal and social ethics of waste, and
the relations between the body, society, and waste. The book relates waste
to wider issues of environmental ethics and individual morality, and discusses
some case studies that illuminate aspects of our complex relationship with
waste.
In chapter one; an overflowing bin, Hawkins discusses the implications for
much of the conventional discussion of waste, which she characterizes as
dualistic, framing humans in opposition to nature. This thinking limits
possibilities for positive change for Hawkins, but she does not suggest that
waste can be removed as a category, suggesting it is necessary both for the
self and for complex societies.
In chapter four; a dumped car, Hawkins discusses contrasting cultural
understandings of waste through recent cinema. Agnes Varda’s Gleaners and
I, which explores gleaning as a social and historical phenomenon related to
value and production systems and Bush Mechanics that identifies an
indigenous Australian relationship to waste that is at odds with European
understandings, are analysed. In Bush Mechanics, leaving traces is seen as an
important aspect of being in a place, and part of an indigenous social
narration of place. Objects left in place are part of an ongoing story about
human relations with place, and are not seen as morally wrong, or as
something that should be hidden.
By exploring the many dimensions and implications of waste, from the
intimate to the global, Hawkins provides an excellent ground to continue
exploration.
Lepawsky, J & Mather, C 2011, 'From beginnings and endings to
boundaries and edges: rethinking circulation and exchange
through electronic waste', Area, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 242-249.

3. FSA 413 Annotated Bibliography Felix Wilson
Lepawsky and Mather’s article sets out to critique existing geographical,
economic, and environmental understandings of waste, which they
characterize as overly linear and lacking in complexity. The article describes a
project following electronic waste from Canada to Bangladesh, where they
found that the idea of waste as something permanently discarded is not
applicable. Every component they follow is re-purposed, never leaving the
production cycle, but being reassembled in complex networks involving
recombination and redistribution.
The authors propose a new model based on boundaries and edges, which
are not fixed, but dependent on changing relations between actors in
complex networks. For the authors boundaries and edges are the result of
relations, which occur as processes that can be recognized and defined
through transitions, for example in the transition of copper circuitry from
electronics into copper ingots destined for sale on the commodities markets.
This work offers the possibility of considering, and visualizing the landfill as a
point in a complex network of interrelations rather than a fixed object or end
point of production or consumption. Although the authors do not expand
their concepts beyond human geographies, their framework could easily be
widened to include non-human actors; birds, animals and bacteria that all act
upon objects and involve them in complex entangled processes that
interrelate with the human.
Rathje, WL & Murphy, C 2001, Rubbish!: the archaeology of
garbage, Harper Collins, New York.
Archaeologist William Rathje was director of the Garbage Project, which used
archaeological techniques to examine Fresh Kills, which was New York’s
primary landfill site for almost half a century, and remains one of the largest
man-made structures in the world. In approaching waste from this
perspective, difficult issues of scale and temporal duration are raised, and
some discussion on the management of landfill sites is included.
Rathje and Murphy’s book is written for a general audience and is much more
conventional in its presentation and discussion of waste, but illuminates many
of the unresolved issues related to the physical presence of waste and its
close relationship to cities and human societies. The authors are less
interested in metaphysics than in the pure physicality of waste and its use as

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evidence of the habits of contemporary, and also ancient societies such as
the Maya, which they discuss in some detail.
Information about the mechanics of waste, and the processes involved in
layering and decomposition is useful in understanding the physical and
chemical processes occurring in landfill sites. The archaeological and
historical perspectives also open avenues of visual inquiry that focus on
temporal and archival aspects of the site.
Aesthetics and Ecological Relations
Carlson, A & Berleant, A 2004, 'Introduction: the aesthetics of
nature', in A Carlson & A Berleant (eds), The aesthetics of natural
environments, Broadview Press, Orchard Park, NY.
Carlson and Berleant’s introduction to their edited collection provides an
overview of the field of environmental aesthetics through a discussion of the
chapters of the book.
Carlson and Berleant’s positions on the appropriate mode of approaching
nature aesthetically differ, with Carlson arguing for an approach informed by
science, which he proposes as an analogy to appreciating an artwork using
relevant art historical information. Berleant argues for an aesthetics of
engagement as a model for appreciating nature or art, or any other
environment. This reverses the conventional position on the difference
between the aesthetics of art and nature, and Berleant argues that the multi
sensory, engaged approach used to encounter nature should be used to
encounter art.
There is no discussion of what the concept of nature implies and the term is
used in a variety of ways in relation to the ideas of the authors whose work is
discussed.
Morton, T 2007, Ecology without nature: Rethinking
environmental aesthetics, Harvard University Press.
Morton’s thesis is that it is the concept of nature that inhibits a more
genuinely ecological relationship between human beings and the non-human
from emerging. In this complex and wide ranging book, Morton draws on

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diverse sources, from contemporary pop culture to romantic philosophy and
builds a compelling argument.
For Morton, aesthetics, politics, art and are intertwined in ideology and he
argues convincingly that nature is a problematic and ideological concept that
hampers possibilities for changing relationships between the human and the
non-human, rather than offering possibilities for change.
The contrast with Carlson and Berleant’s discussion of environmental
aesthetics is strong, whereas they accept nature as a concept requiring no
scrutiny Morton subjects it to a close reading through various art forms, with
very different conclusions reached. Morton offers no clear description of what
a post-nature aesthetics would look like, but as an approach to overcoming
the traditional dualism of nature and culture, his thesis is novel and well
developed.
Carlson and Berleant’s, and Morton’s approaches to aesthetics diverge
significantly. In applying ideas from these books to the project, the
application of scientific knowledge to understanding an environment from
Carlson will be useful and also Morton’s idea that nature is an ideological
concept that needs to be discarded.
Making Landscapes
Mitchell, WJT 2002, 'Imperial Landscape', in WJT Mitchell (ed.),
Landscape and power, 2nd edn, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago.
Mitchell’s collection of essays on the political implications of landscape
imagery is considered seminal in discussion of landscape. Mitchell’s own
chapter Imperial Landscape argues that the term landscape should be
considered as a verb, an active process of encoding place through imagery
with political implications. In highlighting the specificity of landscape imagery
to particular cultural contexts, Mitchell argues that power relations encoded
in landscape imagery support imperial assumptions about control and power
over people and ground in the sites depicted.
In asking what landscape does, and how it operates as cultural practice
Mitchell largely foregoes discussion of ecological or environmental concerns
and focuses instead on the political implications of landscape imagery for

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those who inhabit particular places. This important text informs much
contemporary thinking about landscape, and the relevance to Tasmania and
its colonial history is easily discerned.
Mitchell’s understanding of landscape opens possibilities for creating
representations of the McRobies Gully site that do not encode an imperial
aesthetics, but an aesthetics which recognizes complex relations between
human and non-human actors.
Haynes, RD 2006, Tasmanian visions: landscapes in writing, art
and photography, Polymath Press, Sandy Bay, Tas.
Haynes discusses the visual and literary representation of Tasmania since the
colonial period, focusing on how artists have contributed to a ‘sense of place’
in Tasmania, and how contemporary artists and writers engage with issues
around environmental impact and ideas of wilderness.
The aftermath of colonialism is a strong theme; Haynes refers to the
indigenous people’s long relationship with, and shaping of, the environment
in Tasmania. The relationship between landscape imagery that emphasise
wilderness qualities and the idea of terra nullius echoes Mitchell’s discussion
of the imperial nature of landscape imagery.
Haynes work is highly relevant to the McRobies Gully Project and its
Tasmanian context. Her focus on the political and social implications of visual
imagery and the possibilities it offers for new dialogues encourages
experimentation with visualising ways of thinking about the relationship of
the human and non-human through landscape representation.
Ingold, T 2000, The perception of the environment: essays on
livelihood, dwelling and skill, Routledge, London.
Ingold’s discussion of landscape as a concept draws on theory from
anthropology and art history as well as philosophy to weave a complex
narrative about the human relationship to place expressed through the idea
of landscape.
For Ingold, landscape is much more than a visual, culturally acquired
phenomenon, and he rejects the idea that it must contain a dualism between
human and non-human, or culture and nature. Rather, in chapter eleven; The

7. FSA 413 Annotated Bibliography Felix Wilson
temporality of the landscape he discusses landscape as an inherently
temporal phenomena, and details the implications of this through a close
analysis of Breughel’s The Harvesters which he uses to explain his theories of
landscape as a phenomena of complex interrelations between the body and
environment, each co-dependent upon the other, and occurring through
time.
Ingold’s approach to landscape and aesthetics draws together threads from
diverse fields, his focus on temporality as a critical element of landscape and
his insistence on the non-dualistic nature of landscape are important for the
McRobies Gully project. Rathje and Murphy’s discussion of rubbish also
relates to the temporal aspect of waste and in conjunction with Ingold’s
theoretical work highlight the importance of this aspect of landscape for the
project.
Malpas, J 2011, 'Place and the Problem of Landscape ', in J
Malpas (ed.), The place of landscape: concepts, contexts,
studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Malpas’ Place and the problem of landscape offers an overview of
contemporary thinking about landscape and place, and draws on philosophy
and art-history to explore competing ideas about the two interrelated
concepts.
The examples Malpas cites are often in a Tasmanian context, he uses artists
such as John Glover and Peter Dombrovskis to illustrate his discussion. In
doing this, Malpas places the Tasmanian context at the centre of
contemporary thought about landscape and relations to place.
In discussing wilderness imagery, Malpas concurs with Mitchell’s view of the
spectatorial and ideological nature of such depictions, however Malpas goes
further and suggests that even in these images, it is the human relation to the
place which defines it, and that this is inherent in all landscape imagery.
Malpas concludes his discussion taking a complex and nuanced position,
which treats landscape as broader in scope than the visual or spectatorial and
drawing from Ingold’s thought. For Malpas landscape is shaped by human
involvement, but landscape also shapes the human, and acts as a function of
place.

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To conclude, the readings described above provide a strong theoretical
underpinning for the project and deeper insight into the project’s key
themes; the dualism inherent in conventional understandings of waste and
nature, the possibilities afforded by landscape for describing social and
ecological relations, and the potential for describing the relations between
human and non-human in ways that recognise complex ecologies of
relations.
Little research was identified discussing non-human animals in relation to
waste, either as scavengers (although there is some work related to pest
control in this context), as active agents using waste from human societies or
as creators of waste.
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