Just before Xmas 1999, 1000 people received an invitation to nominate a thing of their own as being ‘not worth keeping’ and to suggest why this might be the case.
Following a nationwide tour and an event of dispersal at Platform Gallery (London May 2001) the Millennium Collection exists now only in the form of a 160pp full colour catalogue which contains an image of each thing and the reason or story behind its nomination.
Between October 2000 and May 2001 the Millennium Collection toured around the country in a converted London Taxi Cab, exhibiting the collection in the unusual, but entirely appropriate, venues of Car Boot Sales.
Car Boot Sales in muddy fields, wildlife parks and race courses, car boot sales in cattle markets, car parks and airfields. We visited Bristol, Preston, York, Brighton, Cambridge, Corby, Lowestoft, Ross on Wye, Arundel, Hounslow and Wimbledon.
The things not worth keeping were handled, discussed, bidded for, laughed over and debated. We were on the road through three seasons, including New Year’s Eve in the snow and we had to change dates due to severe flooding and foot and mouth.
We now feel something approaching experts on the car booting cultural phenomenon and came to see ourselves as taking part, at times, in a kind of group show exploring models of recycleable economies.
