‘The Museum of the Forgotten Plastic Era’ Is a conceptual art project that reimagines the contemporary gallery as a future museum - one that looks back on the age of plastic and showcases it as a strange distant chapter in human history. The project positions that gallery as a site of curated waste, sublimated trash, an interesting place where discarded materials are transformed in to artworks that speak to memory and renewal. In this imagined future the world outside the gallery is undergoing a profound ecological restoration. Plastic and basically all rubbish has been phased out. Not only by consumers but by the now accountable corporate entities. Innovative use of ancient technology reenvisioning the everyday item awakens a return to beauty and functionality with true health in mind. The use of wood, clay, flax and linen become popular materials for building, crafting and sewing. Beauty and care have re-entered daily life. Inside the gallery, however, the remnants of the “plastic era” are preserved - examined, reinterpreted and transformed by well paid artists who act as both archaeologists and storytellers. These galleries exist globally, there is no landfill.
During this four week residency at Vancouver Arts Centre, Albany, I will collect discarded items from the Albany and broader region, actively finding innovative ways to transform these materials into sculptural, functional or sublimated artworks. I will be engaging the community through an open studio, showing where the concept of the ‘The Museum of the Forgotten Plastic Era’ comes alive in a small curated exhibition for the public. I see this as a baby step towards what could one day be a macro paradigm shift for humanity and our environment.