Things Not Worth Keeping (TNWK) was an artist-poet duo, Kirsten Lavers and cris cheek, who did a fine series of socially, politically and conceptually searching and engaging work, usually in a public context and often based on language and inscription, from 1999 to 2007. An old website still gives a good overview: http://www.radiotaxi.org.uk/tnwk/thingsnotworthkeeping/index.html.
See for example 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner', an audio portrait of a secondary school in special measures, by way of Coleridge's poem; or their response to the UK's participation in the Iraq war, based on Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's dictum,"we are taking these steps because words must mean what they say',
The latter was performed during the whole of a legendary weekend festival, 'Total Writing London' (curated by Chris Goode at Camden People's Theatre) in March 2003, probably the origin of this carrier bag, which has hung by the front door, considered as an art work, perhaps ever since being brought here, in 2004.
TNWK's Millennium Collection was about actual things and what made it possible for their owners to relinquish them http://www.radiotaxi.org.uk/tnwk/collection/millenniumcollection/frame.html.
This bag turns out to contain: two expired passports, 4 cheque book stubs and a paying-in book, obsolete Polish and Hungarian currency, certificate of a tetanus jab, a mortgage statement relating to a former home.
