The Arboretum and the Palmer Museum of Art have partnered to explore what humans leave behind and how it affects the world around us. This project, Tracking Trash: A Community Collection, is inspired by the Palmer Museum’s new exhibit, Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld. The Dion-Rockman exhibit, which runs from August 30 to December 7, 2025, probes the tense relationship between humans and the environment.
“We were looking for a project that would engage Arboretum and Palmer visitors in a thoughtful exploration of how humans influence their surroundings,” said public programs manager Rachel Duke. “We realized that we could invite people to be independent curators and log the trash they discover as if it were irreplaceable artwork. Sure, we can see something like a crumpled receipt or a discarded pull tab lying in the garden and think of it as nothing more than garbage! But we can also consider the work and circumstances that went into creating that piece of trash. If you’ve ever seen a plastic bag woven into a bird’s nest, or a tree engulfing a barbed wire fence, you’ve experienced the collision between the man-made and the natural world. That’s what we’re exploring.”
Track Your Trash
Between August 25 and September 25, you are invited to log photographs and written descriptions of trash you encounter in your daily life into an online trash tracker. After the month of tracking, we’ll publish a virtual gallery on social media and as part of the Palmer’s Art After Hours program.
If you find a piece of rubbish in the Arboretum, we hope you will not only log it in the trash tracker but also dispose of it properly in one of the trash receptacles located throughout the botanic gardens or in the recycling bin at the Overlook Pavilion.