1 Line of enquiry
How can examining discarded cardboard boxes and their visual and physical properties offer a more nuanced understanding of the distribution system behind them?
How can labelling discarded cardboard boxes offer a more legible narrative into the distributed system behind them?
2 Project proposal
This project turns the box into the subject rather than a container for goods by screen-printing images of discarded shipping boxes and labels onto corrugated cardboard. Customised labels and tapes have become a way to publish the hidden logistics and distribution behind these shipping boxes, including transit routes, fuel consumption, and handling points. This brings together information that is otherwise separated or obscured. The layering of stickers and labels mirrors the accumulation of journeys, interactions, and labours in distribution.
Input
Three to four boxes: shipping from China and the U.S. to the UK
Audience
primarily online and international shoppers and they will interact with these corrugated cardboard by:
- Observing and revealing: peeling off labels to uncover hidden information about the box journey
- Speculating and annotating: adding stickers of their choice or writing notes to speculate on the missing part of the system
- Reconstructing the journey: using the visual cues to reimagine the unseen labour and logistics behind each box
More to include
- An estimate of how many times a box is handled by delivery, sorting and receiving staff and the average wage at different transit points
- Customise tapes with the above information for each box
- Printing and peel effect
- Cargo spaces: image inside the cargo holds and its load capacity data
- Putting cardboard together to make actual boxes
3 Updated annotated bibliography
Including at least 10 new text and practice references.
Offenhuber, D. (2023) Waste Is Information: Infrastructure Legibility and Governance. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Offenhuber (2023) argues that waste is a process of losing information, but sorting can restore some of that lost meaning by making hidden stories visible again. A discarded cardboard box has seemingly fulfilled its purpose of protecting and transporting goods. Yet, it carries layers of information through shipping labels, sorting stickers and hand-written notes – traces of a journey that is mostly illegible to consumers.
Barcodes, numeric codes and airport codes are designed for efficiency rather than human legibility, reinforcing the idea that “the most profound technologies are those that disappear” (Weiser, 1991). But what if we make them readable? How could cardboard act as a documentation for the global distribution system rather than waste, similar to how landfills serve as an archaeological site of consumption as Offenhuber (2023) suggests? What could we learn about the invisible networks that shape the global distribution by questioning what is hidden and what is exposed in the logistics and waste system surrounding these cardboard boxes?
Olbrich, J. Paper police
Thomas, R. (2025) Melville: the collage artist documenting society’s underbelly in the UK and beyond. Available at: https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/melville-collage-art (Accessed: 12 Feb 2025).
Melville’s photographic scrapbooks layer and juxtapose images in a way that recalls flyposting on city streets. This visual language of accumulations and repurposing resonates with my use of discarded boxes and application of stickers and labels to uncover the hidden system of distributions. The visual traces of pasting, peeling and tearing apart are impactful evidence of the unseen labours in the distribution system.
Patterson, C. (2015) Bottom of the Lake Book. Available at: https://www.christianpatterson.com/bottom-of-the-lake-book/ (Accessed: 12 Feb 2025).
Patterson re-interprets an existing telephone book for his hometown by adding the found markings, personal photos and drawings, all of which provide an alternative narrative inside the book. Similarly, I intervene in the discarded cardboard boxes by using labels and stickers to document their past circulation and hijack various cargo companies’ marketing messages. His approach aligns with my interest in producing new perspectives into found materials.
Angelos, A. (2021) Temperature Textiles bring climate change data to vivid knits. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/raw-color-temperature-textiles-project-planum-product-design-051121 (Accessed: 12 Feb 2025).
Raw Color translates climate change data into woven textiles, transforming abstract statistics into a sensory, tangible experience. This integration of information into material objects shapes my interest in making the logistics and cost of distribution clear through physical interventions in cardboard. I am also captivated by the tactility of physical materials and their ability to create sensory experiences and evoke emotions in people in a way that digital work cannot.
Cai, Y. (2025) The Landforms Of A City. Available at: https://caiyidong.com/projects/landforms/ (Accessed: 12 Feb 2025).
Cai’s project portrays the urban landscapes of Changsha by mapping its subway systems with colour blocks representing stations and fare. This transformation of transit data into abstract visual offers an alternative way to interpret the city, making infrastructure more legible and emotionally evocative. Like Raw Color’s approach to climate data, Cai’s work translates an otherwise functional system into a visually engaging form, revealing unseen urban life structure and rhythms. This aligns with my interest in reinterpreting logistical networks by making their traces more tangible through material interventions.