Millie Burton

Millie Burton is a photographer and video maker whose interests lie in the domestic sphere. Her work addresses subjects such as nostalgia, claustrophobia, attachment, hoarding and waste. Burton has exhibited at internationally, notably the Rencontres D’Arles, and will be exhibiting at Photo Espana after Margate Rocks 08.

Waste is a symptom of expired empathy, a kind of failed relationship that leads to the dumping of one by the other
Jonathan Chapman, 2005

Home Improvements is a series of photographs that document domestic objects found at recycling centres in London and South West England. Inspired partly by Jonathan Chapman’s book Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences and Empathy (published by Earthscan), Home Improvements presents observation of the unwanted in the context of environmental crisis. It raises questions about our emotional attachment to household items and depicts these objects as victims of expired empathy.

In her research, Burton saw these mountains of waste as “out-dated status symbols discarded by the ruthless march of aspiration. Yet in their silent ranks they presented a challenge to our whole way of life”.

_{Home Improvements was commissioned by Pavilion as part of the Pavilion Commissions Programme 2007}

Download Desire, Disappointment and Domestic Waste by Jonathan Chapman
www.millieburton.com

_{Images: Home Improvements, 2007 (detail) © Millie Burton}