"Soda pop is both food and waste desireable and sickening, rich yet empty. " Pat Durr has long been interested in "waste." For several years, her prints, installations, drawings and sculptures have focused on forms of waste, and the role waste plays in our society. Shit and garbage ­ two of the more abject excesses of our economy, the detritus of our constant need to consume have frequently appeared in Durr's art in the form of cow pies and crushed cans. But what of soda pop, the sticky, carbonated beverages that today represent the largest source of refined sugars in the American diet? Advertisements still promote soda pop as innocent fun: refreshing drinks that bring smiles to faces, sometimes cool (as in chic) accompaniments to family meals and social gatherings. Yet many studies have shown that soda pop is a major contributor to childhood obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, osteoporosis, and heart disease. In effect, it is pure "junk food" garbage that we put in our bodies, rather than throw away. As Durr herself has stated, soda pop is "both food' and waste desirable and sickening, rich yet empty." As such, soda pop is an excellent example of the "superabundance" or "extravagance" that Georges Bataille argued is at the centre of any economy, material or symbolic. In contrast to the traditional understanding of material economy as a struggle for scarce resources, Bataille claimed that at any time there is always an excess of energy relative to the actual material needs of societies and individuals. This excess can take many forms: concentrations of energy and wealth, profligate luxury, pollution and waste, catastrophe and violence. The junk food and resultant obesity that plague industrial nations today are prime examples of the excess he described. Durr's multimedia installation at Gallery 101 is comprised of investigative elements, social critique, and celebration. Here, she continues her ongoing (since 2002) international survey of people's soda pop consumption habits, and the influence and importance of "pop" in their lives, focusing heavily on the many respondents who feel they are addicted to soft drinks. Results from this survey will be available for viewing on Durr's new website which accompanies the exhibition (http://sodaculture.ca). Along one wall of the gallery, the artist displays a characteristically vibrant and funky grid of crushed pop cans from her own collection, in which no two can designs (or brands) are the same. Visitors are also asked to bring into the gallery additional soda pop cans. This project is symbolic and cathartic: at irregular intervals, Durr will "perform" by smashing the cans and then attaching them to the grid until the wall is entirely "quilted" with them. Here, the waste is symbolically destroyed but also venerated and transformed from shit to sublime. Large strip and neon lights spell out the words "Culture" and "Trash." Culture Trash, referring to soda pop, but also referencing "pop culture" these are, in a sense, fighting words, extravagant in their own right, an invitation to viewers to participate in Durr's investigation, to look at their own habits, preferences, and desires. Reverse these words and they read "Trash Culture": indeed, this is our world, the economy of our own making. How we position ourselves within it is Durr's crucial question. Jen Budney