This film project originates from XVK (三喜), an artist collective featuring Véronique Sunatori, Sara Kay Maston, and formerly Xuan Ye. The collective’s body of work combines images, video, performance, and sculptural objects. XVK’s work has previously examined the capitalist exploitation and fertilization prevalent in the idol industry, notably through silent music videos that subvert the conventional sound-centric paradigm of pop music. Trashure: Bottle is a Cocoon marks a shift from XVK’s earlier pop icon identities to a newly cultivated collective persona, Vyk, portrayed alternately by Sunatori and Maston. Set in a post-COVID environment, Vyk’s world addresses sustainability, the Anthropocene, eco-theory, food scarcity, the climate crisis, species extinction, and socio-technical imaginaries linked to Toronto’s shoreline.

The film celebrates handwork and resourcefulness, embodying the concept of ‘Jugaad’—frugal and inventive solutions in stark contrast to the relentless pressures of late capitalism. Vyk’s crafting rituals, such as making paintbrushes from her hair, spinning wool from animal fibers, and hand-building vessels from harvested clay, emphasize the value of slow crafting. Her world is a juxtaposition of material scarcity and overload, where she repurposes natural and anthropogenic waste materials, showcasing the enduring value of resisting contemporary culture’s disposable nature.