By Daniel Buckwalter

Consumerism will almost certainly be the death of all of us. Wrapped in that, of course, is the cheap labor that manufacturers the clothing, the food and the packaging, all of it a must-buy at steep prices.

Dig deeper and you will find the child labor used globally to make some of these products. It’s still a problem. The children are the extreme end of the disposable-worker spectrum, but they do magnify the plight of workers everywhere who are viewed as disposable.
All of this overlaps in the Consume & Dispose exhibit at Maude Kerns Art Center’s Salon Gallery through April 24, featuring the mixed-assemblage works of Jennifer Bucheit and Ralf Huber.

It is an exhibit that should make everyone pause. The works certainly reflect the years of study each artist has put into their labor.

Bucheit’s contribution to the exhibit — AGAIN and AGAIN: A Reflection on Consumer Culture — focuses on the quick and easy consumerism all of us are guilty of almost every day. There is, after all, all that packaging that must be dispensed with.

For All Your Needs takes in Hefty garbage bag boxes and Glad sandwich boxes into a montage. Please Come Again is an arresting photo array that spotlights restaurant take-out containers with grains of uneaten rice attached to the boxes.

 Bucheit is a journalism and graphic arts graduate from the University of Iowa. Now living in the Pacific Northwest, she notes in her artist statement that before landfills, her family’s packaging is collected and photographed in a still-life setting. Images are then digitally composited and printed directly back onto the interior side of the original packing.

“The repurposed paper waste provides a moment of visual clarity, presenting material evidence of my family’s habitual consumer behavior intertwined with the everyday human condition,” she writes.

Huber’s overlapping exhibit — TURNING the/into TOOLS — focuses on the costs of human capital that makes consumerism flourish, especially the use of children as human capital worldwide.

It’s a subject the Lane County artist has explored in multiple showings in recent years at galleries in Eugene and Springfield, notably using art from the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and early 20th century for his mixed-assemblage pieces.

And there is a thread of good news here. UNICEF and the International Labour Organization reported in June 2025 that nearly 138 million children were engaged in child labour in 2024, including around 54 million in hazardous work likely to jeopardize their health, safety or development. However, that is a reduction of more than 20 million children since 2020, the report noted, reversing a spike between 2016 and 2020. Still, the number is awful.

Two pieces from TURNING the/into TOOLS caught my eye and spoke truly to the exhibit’s Consume & Dispose theme. The first was Inside, a jarring photo of a small boy, accompanied by a soulful quote from Mary “Mother” Harris Jones, school teacher and labor organizer in the U.S. during the Industrial Revolution.

Second was Das Kapital, a mixed-assemblage piece that features on top only a right arm churning the wheel of machinery. Below it is a a picture of a small boy. He’s upside down and his eyes are covered, faceless and without soul.

Hopefully, everyone who views this exhibit will reflect on where we are and where we are going — before it’s too late.

Consume & Dispose, at the Maude Kerns Art Center

What: Features work by artists Jennifer Bucheit and Ralf Huber

When: Through April 24, 2026, in the Maude Kerns Art Center’s Salon Gallery

Where: 1910 E. 15th Ave., Eugene.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5:30 pm Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday

Special events: A free artist talk about the exhibit from 1-2 p.m. on Saturday, April 18

Also showing: Witness: Earth & Sky in the Henry Korn Gallery, featuring featuring artists Rich Bergeman and Amanda Thomas.