The exposure Plastic-Rebuilding Our World analyzes revolutionary material on maat
The exposure Plastic-Rebuilding Our World analyzes the revolutionary and deeply controversial material to which we give the generic name “plastic” but which, in truth, includes a universe of synthetic products, with different characteristics and uses.
Plastic is everywhere, It is the material that shapes everyday life. Knowing different uses and experiences as a product and waste around the world, plastic is essential and, however, superfluous, simultaneously vital and lethal, seductive, but dangerous.
Never before has it been so urgent to understand this artificial material with more than 150 years of history and analyze the astonishing and worrying narrative of its invention and dissemination. The exposure Plastic-Rebuilding Our World do Maat traces the unparalleled rise of plastics, its tremendous popularity and the growing perception of its destructive power. Equating the role played by design along this path, It seeks to understand the immensely innovative character and generator of new ways of life of a material that simultaneously contributed to the unavoidable crisis of environmental pollution that we are experiencing today.
Divided into three sections, the exhibition opens with a videographic installation about the fundamental geological relationship between plastic and nature. The second section covers the history of plastic from its natural origins to experimentation with synthetic materials in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries., later continuing with the growth of the petrochemical industry, its impact on the scale of plastic production and the growing concern for the planet from the end of the 20th century. Finally, the third section takes stock of current efforts to rethink plastic, develop alternatives, reduce its production and consumption and promote its reuse.
With this look towards the future, Plastic: Rebuild Our World, o maat and the EDP Foundation make a call to action in times of global climate crisis.
Curatorial team:
V&A Dundee: Charlotte Hale, Laurie Bassam
maat: Anniina Koivu