Plastic Bagalicious

plastic people

It’s kind of nice. Here plastic bags are the scourge of the highways and oceans, choking aquatic wildlife and making whole islands in the sea, and artists everywhere are turning them into a material of art.

Currently you can view such art by Temporary Services at Off the Grid, an exhibition of works inspired by, well . . . look at the title. Temporary Services displays woven objects and signs made of plastic bags, as well as images of the faux jellyfish out in the world in their piece Personal Plastic. Peruse the exhibit co-curated by free103point9 at the Neuberger Museum of Art or online for other fascinating objects, works and inventions.

Artist Ruby ReUsable from Olympia, WA works often with old plastic– her plastic-person is above, featured in the soon-to-close Black Front Gallery. Plastic people also spring from the mind of artist Jet Mondares, who makes beautiful collages with shopping bags, and has begun his own online campaign to reduce, reuse and recycle his materials.

Then there’s this guerilla artist, featured in drain magazine, who simply chained together the number of plastic bags potentially used by the students of Pacific University on one day, given one bag apiece. The chain was 1347 plastic bags long and was titled “Plastic Impact.”

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