Where my old Dell Computer met its eventual demise

"Always think of what is useful, and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord." ~ Nikolai Gogol (1809 - 1852)

Just figured out what all of the strangely beautiful subway renderings - what I'd been calling the CPU graveyard - in St. Patrick Station were on about. Turns out it's a public installation by Beijing-based artist Xing Danwen, who spent a few years documenting the current practice of computer stripping and junking in China's Guangdong province

Is it strange enough to think that these cast-off computers - most sent from the U.S. - are "resettling" in the nation who birthed them?
A strange new export-import business hybrid, to be sure.

This is from a series a Beijing-based large-format photographer, Xing Danwen, from her series "disCONNEXION, Image B3 from the series, 2002 - 03"//For more of her recent work, and about the Contact Toronto Photography Festival, which runs this week through to May 31

** For more scroll on over to Now Magazine's review of this week's festivities here.