A New York City-based artist found a way to allow the public to get a piece of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s headline‑dominating wedding at Madison Square Garden.
Justin Gignac — who is known for converting discarded city trash into valuable art — combed through the sidewalks outside the venue, gathering remnants of the event, according to Hyperallergic. With the debris, he created tiny display boxes filled with scraps from the scene.
“It wasn’t as dirty as I was expecting,” Gignac told Hyperallergic, explaining his experience gathering materials on July 3 outside of MSG using a claw grabber. “I found a lot of bottle caps, cigarette butts, and one left AirPod on the crosswalk — that was a first, even though those are probably the easiest things to lose.”
He packed the items he collected into 50 clear cubes, each labeled with the wedding date, and priced them at $25. They sold out almost immediately.
“There’s garbage on the floor after the party. Collected from the edge of a love story outside Madison Square Garden, as close to Taylor & Travis’ big day as you could’ve gotten without an invite,” he wrote on his site, explaining the project.
“I figured Swifties would never want to part with their wedding garbage, so, they can take it with them wherever they go,” he told BBC.
The Origins of His City Trash Project
The series joined his long‑running “New York City Garbage” project, which began more than two decades ago as an attempt to prove that packaging doesn’t influence value. During a college internship, Gignac set out to show that presentation alone could make even trash appealing, according to his website and Hyperallergic.
“To prove them wrong, he set out to find something no one would ever buy and package it for sale. Looking around the dirty streets of Times Square, garbage was the perfect answer,” his website states. “Since then, over 1,700 NYC Garbage cubes have been sold and now reside in 30 countries worldwide.”
He’s also created limited editions, and began marking each cube with dates and numbers, turning them into miniature cultural snapshots tied to major events. Some of them include: Barack Obama’s first inauguration; the legalization of same‑sex marriage in New York; the Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island; and the 2009 World Series.
After pausing the project for nearly a decade to build his own company, he revived it for its 25th anniversary and recently released an Earth Day collection created from from bodega trash. Organic materials are off‑limits — both for longevity and because, as he admits, he ironically has a sensitive gag reflex.
Previously, we told you how Michael Strahan described what it was like for guests witnessing the two on their special day. We also detailed some of the big names who landed an invite to the wedding. And finally, we also explained how the pair donated $26 million to 20 nonprofits just ahead of their big day. Their donations reportedly supported nine food banks, an animal‑welfare group, and children’s hospitals.
