Chinese artist is a clutter bug

Think the collection of bundled newspapers lining the hallway of the neighbourhood hermit is obsessive? Spare a thought for Chinese artist Song Dong, whose mother accumulated domestic objects on a titanic scale, so much so that the artist has been able to turn 10,000 of her personal belongings into a huge art installation – Waste Not at the Barbican Centre in London.

Although contemporary art installations can be anything these days, the array of neatly organised washing up bowls, discarded toys and carefully arranged plastic bottle tops are a peculiar site in the Curve, the gallery’s free exhibition space. There’s even a row of used toothpaste tubes.

Beijing-born Song has exhibited across the globe, his work ranging from video art to paintings and sculpture. This is his largest solo show in the UK, and depicts what Song calls ‘life art’, rather than installation art.

In 1937, Zhao Xiangyuan, Song Dong’s mother, was born into a wealthy family but the political upheaval of China during the 1950s and 60s saw the prosperity of the family dissolve, with Dong’s father labelled counter-revolutionary. Amongst the change, Song’s mother was also forced to adapt.

"In that time my mother's life was very hard. So she started to keep everything, even the smallest things seemed quite valuable. Then later China opened up and my family started to become wealthier again. But my mother still refused to throw anything away. Her motto was always 'waste not'," the artist told BBC arts correspondent Vincent Dowd.

Pieces of old soap are the favourite things of Dong’s that his mother accumulated. "They look like stones now but to me they're very special. Some of the bits are probably older than I am.

"My mother gave them to me as a gift on my wedding day but I said: 'Oh I wash my clothes in a washing machine now I don't need soap'. But when I started the project I realised she'd kept the soap pieces anyway. So it wasn't just soap, it was my mother's love."

Many of the 10,000 or so objects displayed are trivial, the usual clutter that makes up a house, old pens, crockery and food containers as well as old foam packaging that was used so stray cats didn’t free walking across the ground in winter.

Although some of the objects could’ve been turned into money, like metallic tubes for toothpaste, Dong’s mother refused to part with her things.

"She liked the new plastic tubes too. She'd run the side of a pen over them to make sure every bit of toothpaste was out," he said.

Most of Dong's art focuses on the transience of life. One of his performance pieces is Water Diary, in which he writes on a pavement or road in water. "I think in the future everything is nothing. But here you see that memory is real."