Break Down Favorite 

Artist Michael Landy catalogued, inventoried, and systemically destroyed all of his possessions for the 2001 public installation Break Down, commissioned by British arts organization Artangel. It took him three years just to itemize the 7,227 objects included in the project. In a former department store on Oxford Street—London's consumer thoroughfare—visitors could watch a large industrial machine operated by a team of ten workers destroy all of Landy's possessions, one by one, over a two-week period. At the end, nothing was left but powder, which was taken to a landfill—at which point a more symbolic and personal breakdown began. Landy's project addressed the construction of individual identity amidst hyperconsumerism. The project drew enormous public and media attention, with more than 45,000 people coming to view the process over the span of two weeks.

From Creative Time, Social Practice Archive