Every year in Luxembourg, 1,001 tons of material is tossed or dumped as litter - thatʼs an average of 1,6 kilograms per inhabitant, with 216 kilograms of litter per kilometer strewn along the motorways and 103 kilograms per kilometer by the side of the countryʼs smaller roads. Cleaning this up costs the country 1,2 million Euros per year.
With my camera I have been capturing all the junk that people leave behind: from the bathtubs they dump in the forest, to the rubbish they leave behind after an outdoor barbecue, to the cigarette butts and cans they toss out of car windows. While shooting this I have been trying to figure out why people do this, why people seem to have so little respect for the environment.
I had several possibilities for illustrating this problem and I decided to use a medium format analogue camera, one that allowed me to concentrate on the landscape, in this case a soiled landscape. I wasn't looking for purely aesthetic images, but images that expressed a message.
Increasingly frustrated by all the litter found in the countryside, I decided to take a closer look at the issue. I had countless meetings with people dealing professionally with the issue, did research into the numbers, the psychology, and the daily reality of littering and the fight against it. All this reinforced my conviction that I wanted to document the history of our litter.
To create awareness about this issue I created a book and an exhibition, a campaign along the highways and organized a Take Action Day as well as a travelling exhibition for schoolchildren around the country. The project was part of the European Capital of Culture Esch2022, so I was able to reach many more people with the message of 1,001 tonnes.
Jessica Theis
Jessica Theis (*1981), from Luxembourg, studied at the Lazi Akademie, Akademie for Visual Communication in Stuttgart (D), where she obtained her diploma in "Foto-Design" in 2003. Jessica Theis has been working as a freelance photographer and artist since 2005, and regularly exhibits in solo and group shows in Luxembourg and abroad. One of her latest publications, '1001 tonnes', was published in 2022.
Exhibition views at Clervaux & Heinerscheid
Photos © Jessica Theis
