Junk, but not rubbish

This new exhibition may, to many, transform the Serpentine Gallery into what resembles a dump: strewn around the gallery in artful disarray are more than 7,600 objects, many of them rescued from skips.

They have nothing in common except that they have all been found by Japanese artist Tomoko Takahashi over the last few months - and that in April she is giving everything away.

Exhibits in her huge installation, which is called My Play-station At Serpentine 2005 and opens to the public today, include scores of old school chairs, a Tracey Island game, three sets of Monopoly, some rusty shovels, a collection of vintage sewing machines, old computers and three stuffed blackbirds. Oh, there's, a miniature pool table too.

Every object has been collected by Ms Takahashi, 38, over the last 15 weeks and for the last three she has slept in the gallery on an old air mattress, spending day after day painstakingly positioning every piece of bric-a-brac precisely as she wants.

Serpentine curator Rochelle Steiner said: "Many people have described these works as 'a load of rubbish' but I think the show is looking to give these objects another use - it is not just rubbish."

Indeed, just like Seventies children's TV icons The Wombles, Ms Takahashi, who was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2000, makes good use of the things that she finds - things that everyday folks leave behind - by incorporating them into her complicated installations.

Ms Steiner said: "One day she came into the gallery and said she was very excited because she had found a bag of 200 unused sponges. I thought, 'Oh my god, what are you going to do with those?'

But she found a use for them. Takahashi is a precisionist, a perfectionist. When you come in and actually have a look around, you'll see that everything has its own home - everything is in its place for a reason."

When the show closes all of the items will be up for grabs on a strictly first come, first serve basis.

There is a full inventory of the objects on display at the Serpentine, but highlights include a Hula Hoop covered in gold tape, a machine for spreading fertiliser, an old staircase, two sets of Yahtzee, a couple of fridges, a soft toy ladybird, 200 sets of playing cards and two fake trees.

My Play-station opens at the Serpentine Gallery today and runs until 10 April.