The art practice of material reuse, known as upcycling, constitutes both an aesthetic and ideological field that connects folk creativity with contemporary conceptual art. Objects that have lost their original function are integrated into new morphological contexts, undergoing a transformation that is not only material but also conceptual. From the traditional American Amish quilts to the iconic works of Simon Rodia and the Dadaist interventions of Marcel Duchamp, upcycling becomes a critical stance against mass production and commodification. The emergence of the political subject within the act of assemblage is evident in the works of Romuald Hazoumé, where African memory intersects with the remnants of Western consumer culture. Jeff Wassmann, through the creation of a fictional artistic genealogy, and Max Zorn, with the use of humble materials in urban environments, expand the dimensions of this practice. Upcycling, as a form of creative recycling imbued with high symbolic charge, repositions the discarded at the heart of artistic creation and critically reflects on materiality, memory, and value within the post-industrial condition. Beyond its material and tangible application, art has always operated as a conceptual mechanism for the feedback of human civilization, processing fundamental issues that resurface in various forms: matter and decay, memory and oblivion, the search for meaning. The contemporary confrontation with the old—what was once familiar but has now been forgotten and often perceived as estranged—reintroduces, under new conditions, archetypal questions of creation, value, and the human position in the world.