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Sparkle (0)
Where should fake plastic fish live? In a Plastiquarium, of course!
Since creating my blog, Fake Plastic Fish, about plastic pollution, I've had the privilege of interviewing a growing segment of artists working in plastic to bring awareness to issues of plastic pollution, waste, and consumer culture. Here are a few gems I've discovered.
David Edgar's Plastiquarium
The Plastiquarium mythology:
The Plastiquarium is immersed in mystery. Modern myth suggests that a century of increasing phosphate levels in Earth’s marine environment caused new, synthetic life forms to emerge. As recyclable HDPE plastic containers spread concentrates of consumer product pollutants, the Plastiquarium creatures evolved in the image of their packaging forebearers.
David Edgar and I had a long and thought-provoking conversation about art and materials and consumerism. And he told me more about the evolution of the Plastiquarium species, explaining that pollutants in the plastic containers (mostly laundry detergent bottles) are triggering new forms of life that mimic the packaging that spreads the pollutants in the first place. Just as we carry the memory of our forefathers, they carry the memory of the products that triggered their strange mutations.
Collecting the plastic: With full support of the local recycling center, David takes walks through the neighborhood dragging behind him a 4-foot length of cord, to which he attaches all the colorful detergent bottles he finds in residents’ recycle bins.
Lesson from art: Originally, David would remove the labels from the bottles. But eventually, he realized that the labels were a further layer of comment on our consumer-oriented society. He learned to listen to what his materials had to teach him.
David and his wife Robin have put together a beautiful art/craft book, titled Fantastic Recycled Plastic: 30 Clever Creations to Spark Your Imagination, based on not only the Plastiquarium but other plastic creations like birds, insects, and flowers, as well as the work of other artists in the recycled plastic medium. What’s more, the beginning sections of the book explain the history of plastic as well as problems with plastic recycling and environmental issues. In fact, there is a whole page about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Dianna Cohen
Dianna Cohen is a painter, but she doesn't use a paint brush. Trained at UCLA, she gave up the brush for materials most people consider trash: bags, boxes, little pieces of plastic. This year, she helped to found the Plastic Pollution Coalition. After 20 years, she finally started to get the messages from her own art.
Dianna first starting working with plastic bags after visiting a homeopathic shop in Belgium that provided bags with colorful flowers printed on them. She noticed the irony of the natural image against the synthetic material and began creating collages from plastic bags, arranging the printed text and images to create messages that even she didn't always understand.
After about eight years of working with plastic, she noticed that some of the materials had begun to crack and flake, leaving tiny pieces of plastic inside their frames.
Lesson from art: Like David, it took Dianna a while to see what her materials wanted to teach her. Dismayed that her art was not as archival as she once thought, Dianna changed her perspective and began to realize that the disintegration of the plastic was part of the message of the piece. While plastic molecules might last forever in the environment, the plastic products themselves can break down into smaller and smaller pieces, releasing their chemicals and doing even more damage than if they remained intact.
Since then, Dianna has become more active in working to stem the tide of waste, especially plastic pollution. A co-founder of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, Dianna's mission as an artist has evolved into activist as well.
The Plastic Wave
Kathleen Egan -- surfer, artist, and environmental activist -- heads up SF Surfrider's Plastics Subcommittee, which is working to end the plague of plastic pollution in our oceans.
Her giant plastic
