Books = Christmas trees Do you remember our...

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Consumption is a word used to describe acts of acquisition – generally, the acquisition of things, in exchange for money.

Unconsumption is a word used to describe everything that happens after an act of acquisition.

Unconsumption is an invisible badge.

Unconsumption means the accomplishment of properly recycling your old cellphone, rather than the guilt of letting it sit in a drawer.

Unconsumption means the thrill of finding a new use for something that you were about to throw away.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a service like Freecycle (or Craigslist, Goodwill, or Salvation Army) to find a new home for the functioning DVD player you just replaced, rather than throwing it in the garbage.

Unconsumption means enjoying the things you own to the fullest – not just at the moment of acquisition.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a pair of sneakers until they are truly worn out – as opposed to the nagging feeling of defeat when they simply go out of style.

Unconsumption means feeling good about the simple act of turning off the lights when you leave the room.

Unconsumption is not about the rejection of things, or the demonization of things. It’s not a bunch of rules.

Unconsumption is an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from a new perspective.

Unconsumption is free.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Founder & Editor: Rob Walker, journalist, Savannah, GA

Editorial & Community Manager: Molly Block, marketing and business development geek, Houston, TX

Brian W. Jones, designer & writer, Göteborg, Sweden

Kashvi Kumar, Environmental Studies and Economics major at New York University

Deirdre Nelson, ever threading artist, Glasgow, Scotland

Lee Sachs, writer, user experience consultant, filmmaker, New York, NY

Shanna Trenholm, writer. catalyst. force of nature. San Diego, CA

* * *

Alumnus & Unconsumption logo creator: Clifton Burt, graphic designer, Portland, OR

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9:21 am - Sat, Dec 10, 2011: 110 notes

Books = Christmas trees

Do you remember our December 2010 post about a Christmas tree made from books at the Gleeson Library at the University of San Francisco, or our post about this smaller book tree? Or perhaps you saw some mention last year of the book tree constructed by the folks at Juniper Books in Boulder?

Well, it looks like the book tree idea has caught on in other places. In Poland, librarians at the University Library of UWM (University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn), made the above-pictured tree from 1,600 books. (That’s a lot of copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Joseph Heller’s Picture This!) Click here for details and here to view a Flickr stream showing 50+ shots of the tree, including several photos captured during the construction process, a how-to for others who want to build book trees.

And here’s a book tree located at the Inglewood Public Library, in the Los Angeles area.

Let us know if you spot other book trees elsewhere.

Related: Unconsumption posts about trees made from other non-traditional materials: shopping carts, bicycle parts, 40,000 plastic bottles, upside down tomato cages with strings of lights, wood scraps.