Living in the Age of Plastic

Plastic is everywhere, in bottles, packaging and many other everyday objects. Yet, not all plastics are created equal. Plastics are a large family of different materials, each with its own properties, applications, and health and environmental impacts. The Society of the Plastics Industry therefore introduced a classification system for the different types of plastics, the Resin Identification Code, which consists of a number from 1 to 7 in a triangle of chasing arrows, and can be found on most plastic products.

With this project, I aim at compiling an overview of the plastic types pervasive in our daily lives. For this purpose, I stage everyday plastic objects as Still Life arrangements, sorted by type of plastic. Each type is assigned a colour. A textual level provides background and consumer information. Meaning is created through the interplay of photographs, colours, symbols and texts. With this project, I want to create a visual world that expands our verbal notion of plastics. I hope to encourage viewers to be mindful of which types of plastic are part of their lives and to provide reliable information to support consumers in their purchase decisions.