Abandoned footwear

Artistic use

Abandoned footwear is a feature in a number of artistic works

• Some artists derive insight and inspiration from abandoned footwear - a form of art known as objet trouvé.
• The lost slipper in the Cinderella folktale is a classic example of the literary device of the "lost object".
• A fisherman hauling up an old boot, rather than a fish, is a comic-strip cliché.
• The theme of abandoned footwear and their untold story is explored in detail in Julie Ann Shapiro's novel, Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries. The titular character describes the phenomenon, “The forgotten shoes are everywhere: littering the side of the highway, floating in the tide, going upstream with the salmon, or occupying a field like a dead body, discarded and left to rot.”
• Van Gogh made multiple paintings of abandoned shoes and boots.

As a memorial

After the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated in 1945, large piles of "abandoned" shoes were found which in turn became a symbol of the loss and death. Shoes on the Danube Bank uses abandoned shoes to show the absence of the people shot into the river. It has also been used for indigenous children in Canada and children and in Gaza.

In sport

Leaving behind shoes or "hanging up the cleats" can be a symbol of retirement in sport. For example, as ESPN's Sherry Skalko describes about Rulon Gardner's last wrestling bout in Athens, Greece:

An emotional Rulon Gardner prepares to leave his shoes on the mat -- a symbol of retirement.

After the referee raised Gardner's hand in victory -- first to one side of the arena, then to the other -- Gardner grabbed an American flag, wiped away tears and parked himself in the middle of Mat B like "a 33-year-old kid" and took off his size 13 shoes. First the right one, the one that contains the constant reminder of the snowmobiling accident that almost took his life two years ago, then the left.

Then the super heavyweight bronze medalist stood up, bowed his head at each side of the mat and walked off, leaving his shoes behind, a wrestler's signal that he had fought his final bout.

As waste

Abandoned and discarded footwear are a major source of waste, especially with increased consumption and disposal as a result of fast fashion trends. Footwear is generally not biodegradable and as they are typically made of many different materials, they are hard to recycle. As a consequence, they are often disposed of by incineration.

References

References

1. (August 7, 2005). "Shoe-icide - and other mysteries". Wichita Eagle.
2. Campagnaro, Marnie. (2024). "Slippers, Shoes, Clogs, Galoshes, and Boots: The History and Materiality of Footwear in European Fairy Tales". Marvels & Tales.
3. (April 9, 1992). "Sole Survivor So That's Why Those Shoes Lie Alongside the Road". Rocky Mountain News.
4. (January 29, 1993). "That's Shoe-Biz". San Jose Mercury News.
5. "Litter Reduction Program".
6. STRINGER. (2025-06-06). "Abandoned shoes and a fallen barrier outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru after a crush killed 11 people celebrating their team's IPL victory".
7. Mervyn Rothstein. (November 9, 1990). "Seeing New York With a Poet's Eye". New York Times.
8. Paul Gifford. (2005). "Love, desire and transcendence in French literature". Ashgate Publishing.
9. Gary Warth. (January 29, 2008). "One shoe at a time". North County Times.
10. Kim, JongwooJeremy. (2010). "Painted Men in Britain, 1868?918: Royal Academicians and Masculinities". Taylor and Francis.
11. Derrida, Jacques. (1987). "The Truth in Painting". The University of Chicago.
12. Manithottil, Paul. (2008). "Difference at the Origin: Derrida's Critique of Heidegger's Philosophy of the Work of Art". Atlantic Publishers & Dist.
13. Correia, Alice. (2012-05-01). "Zarina Bhimji:Light, Time and Dislocation". Third Text.
14. Cirnigliaro, Noelia S.. (1 June 2013). "Touching the ground: women's footwear in the early modern Hispanic world. An introduction.". Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies.
15. David, Lea. (January 2025). "The victims' shoes trope and emerging solidarity in political protest". Nations and Nationalism.
16. hamishcraig. (2024-10-07). "10 Abadoned Footwear Projects".
17. Ochayon, Sheryl Silver. "The Shoes on the Danube Promenade".
18. Gera, Vanessa. (2023-05-19). "Auschwitz museum begins emotional work of conserving 8,000 shoes of murdered children".
19. Bigsby, Christopher. (2006-10-19). "Remembering and Imagining the Holocaust: The Chain of Memory". Cambridge University Press.
20. "Shoe Memorial {{!}} Legislative Assembly of Ontario".
21. "Thousands of shoes laid out as memorial to children killed in Gaza".
22. Skalko, Sherry. (August 25, 2004). "Gardner leaves shoes, legacy behind". ESPN.
23. Van Rensburg, Melissa L. (June 2020). "Life cycle and End-of-Life management options in the footwear industry: A review". Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy.