What to do with your old audio cassettes? Give them to an artist instead of throwing them away

They are in almost every attic: entire boxes, bags, sometimes crates. Audio cassettes that have survived three moves without anyone really knowing why we still keep them: too full of memories to end up at the dump, too bulky to stay there indefinitely.

Most people end up throwing them away. It’s a shame, because there is another option.

What I do with your cassettes

Since 2021, I have been creating portraits on assemblages of vintage audio cassettes. Not new cassettes bought in bulk: cassettes that have lived, that have been recorded, listened to, returned, that bear handwritten scribbles, faded titles, homemade labels.

It is precisely this past that interests me. A blank cassette bought on the internet does not have the same density as a cassette that has spent thirty years in a Norman attic. The object has a history, and when it becomes the support for a work, this history remains inside, invisible but present. You can see the result with “Question,” a portrait of David Bowie made from 90 cassettes.

Your cassettes can become a work of art

If you have cassettes and do not know what to do with them, you can send them to me or bring them to me. I incorporate them into my creations. Some become the support for a portrait of your choice. Others join my reserve for future works.

This is not an ecological gesture in the marketing sense of the term. It is simply the logic of my work. I hunt for these objects Sunday after Sunday at flea markets. When someone brings them to me directly, with their history, it is even better.

And if you want to go further, a custom commission is possible. An artist who matters to you, a format that suits your space, your own cassettes as raw material. The result is a work that belongs to you twice.

What if you prefer another solution?

You are not obliged to entrust them to me. Giving them to a resource center or a music enthusiast remains a very good idea. The main thing is that they do not end up forgotten at the bottom of a box.

What your cassettes have in common with my works

The people who buy these portraits often tell me the same thing. They are fans of the artist depicted, and the cassette is part of their youth. This double link, with the subject and with the object, is what makes these works different from a poster or a digital print.

A cassette that you held in your hands thirty years ago, transformed into a portrait of an artist who mattered to you, hanging in your living room. It is no longer decoration. It is something else.

If your cassettes are sleeping somewhere and this idea speaks to you, the contact page is there.