🛍️Meeting at The Plastic Bag Store in MA😍
Last month, our Director of Solutions to Plastic Pollution, Jenny Gitlitz, met up with a number of the amazing advocates, artists, and volunteers in our growing movement at MassMOCA in North Adams, MA to see Robin Frohardt's "The Plastic Bag Store: a Tragicomic Ode to the Foreverness of Plastic."
From left to right: Deborah Burns (Beyond Plastics Speakers Bureau), Eileen Ryan (Beyond Plastics Greater Boston), Jenny Gitlitz (Beyond Plastics), Eve Schaub (author, Year of No Garbage, Beyond Plastics Virtual Group), Anne-Katrin Spiess (artist, Death by Plastic), Evie Lovett (Beyond Plastics Southeast Vermont). Kneeling: Christy Rupp (eco-artist, Beyond Plastics Volunteer Speakers Bureau).
This is not a typical museum exhibit; it's a scheduled, multimedia, immersive experience of a grocery store where everything on the shelves--from canned goods to candy, from salads to cigarettes, from frozen food to fresh flowers--is made from plastic and branded as plastic. It mocks corporate marketing and challenges us to think about our consumption habits.
Photos by Maria Baranova courtesy of Mass MOCA.
“As a specialist in the field of plastics, I'd been a little skeptical that the exhibit would seem like old hat to me, but I was surprised and captivated! I've seen it twice now and I cannot wait to go back,” said Jenny Gitlitz, Beyond Plastics’ Director of Solutions to Plastic Pollution.
Photos by Maria Baranova and Greg Nesbit, courtesy of Mass MOCA.
The three-part film that accompanies the store uses fictional characters and low-tech materials to create poignant and very funny scenarios from the ancient past, the present, and a distant future we definitely don't aspire to! We don't want to give away specifics as spoilers because the revelations you'll have are worth waiting for. The artistry is superb and is sure to delight viewers of all ages. Robin Frohardt is a genius, and we guarantee that you will be as thrilled as Jenny was to encounter her masterpiece.
Photos by Maria Baranova and Greg Nesbit, courtesy of Mass MOCA.
If you’re within driving distance of North Adams, MA, we strongly suggest that you take a trip to go check out The Plastic Bag Store. The show runs through November 3. Learn more and buy tickets here.