Reconnecting the Dots

Pack Rat refuses to give back any fillets of fish

Is there anything sadder than a discarded lotto ticket? It pretty much screams of dreams lost, broken, and disappointed, be they small or large. However, before that thought has you drafting  a suicide note, take heart. Not everyone out there is a pessimist. Take artist Jean Shin, who sees these slips of sad trash more like prayer offerings to the gods of success. She has collected about $25,000 worth of lotto tickets and assembled them into a booming burg in a piece she calls Chance City.

Her city of  cards, much like the dreams the lotto tickets represent, isn't held together by anything permanent or stable. She uses no adhesive to bolster these paper slips, just a steady hand and gravity to assemble the sky scrapers. And, like a deeply cherished dream, somehow her precarious city works.

Shin says, "I feel like these are reflections of cities. Most people who move to cities experience a lot of hardship and work, not a lot of instant successes. So they learn the hard way by living in a city what defying odds is all about. Picking up your life and moving to the city and giving it all you can, your dreams may change — transform, but somehow, I think all of us retain that memory of something that they really wanted to do, and against all odds, are able to succeed."

Hear more about Jean Shin's efforts to look on the bright side of refuse at Morning Edition on NPR. And see more of her work in her "Common Threads" show, on display  The Smithsonian until July 26.

photo copyright Jean Shin