Daniel and Sissi

We explored the imperative Clean it up! from a variety of perspectives. First there is the unspecified subject, who must do this cleaning? Perhaps you or is it you addressing another or another being addressed by another? Then there is the it, a subject, a thing which has been deemed the thing that needs to be cleaned up, separated from its surroundings, physically and ontologically.

Alongside this it that needs to be cleaned, is a not it, a thing which is not in need of being cleaned up; a base of sorts which is deemed clean, or clean enough. Then there are any number of other layers of things and non-things that are also deemed clean or clean enough. Now back to the it layer, that which is deemed not clean, that must be cleaned up. Which brings us to the directionality, what is to be cleaned, is to be cleaned UP.

And where is this place called UP? Where is it in relation to other directional possibilities, what might happen if the imperative were reframed as such, Clean it sideways! This set of large conceptual questions will be explored with particular attention paid to the history and future plans for remediating mining sites throughout Australia and the specific clean up effort underway at Peltz and Westerberg’s Swedish glass factory site meant to address hundreds of years of accumulated arsenic and lead contamination.