As part of Design Lab #5, the Kunstgewerbemuseum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin presents the exhibition Times of Waste – The Leftover, which emerged from a transdisciplinary research project and was realized for the German context in collaboration with Flavia Caviezel and Mirjam Bürgin of the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel.

Waste can be a promising resource or an annoying rest, waste is political and social, but above all unavoidable. Waste never disappears completely and always leaves traces. Times of Waste – The Leftover focuses on the life of a smartphone, looking at typical everyday technology of our time that leaves behind many forms of waste, starting with the extraction of the raw materials it contains.

The exhibition provides an insight into the Times of Waste research project, which explores the transformation processes of the smartphone and its components using artistic-scientific methods: an object biography maps various transport routes and recycling routes. It tells of economic transformations and new relationships, of local and global contexts. Investigation leads the researchers to landfills and shredders, to repair shops, research laboratories, and to various materials and people.