Yesterday, I traveled into the City of Buffalo to see a multimedia exhibit called “Runoff” at the Anderson Gallery, which is part of the State University of New York at Buffalo. The artist who created this exhibit is Christy Rupp. The exhibit is bright, colorful and very creative. Not only is it imaginative, it’s also a statement on our use of plastic and on the devastation that plastic waste causes on our earth and its inhabitants, which include birds and fish.
I found some comments from Christy Rupp about her art and her activism on her website, which you can find at https://christyrupp.com/: “As a conceptual artist and citizen scientist, my work is informed by the study of animal behavior and habitat. Since the late 70’s I have collected and worked with discarded material to consider its intervention and importance in the food web.“
Christy Rupp also mentioned her own life history as a motivation for her life’s work: “Growing up in the Great Lakes rustbelt of the ’50s and ’60s, I was aware at an early age how the language we use to describe the environment establishes our place in the natural world. Our perceptions are as much framed by stories of waste as they are of wonder. Upon moving to NYC in the late ’70s, like many artists, I was fortunate to be a participant in the petri dish of economic decline and urban ecology, and for the past four plus decades a focus on Discard Studies has mobilized my sculpture practice. I have come to believe that although the landscape of ecocide is a sad place, it is also a place of rebirth.“
This image represents a human stomach. It is made from 52 old credit cards and gift cards. I think that this is a visual representation of the large quantities of plastic that humans unknowingly consume. The plastic is hidden in our food and we have no clue that it’s there.
There’s a lof of plastic waste in the oceans and the fish and other marine animals are consuming that plastic. According to data that I found online, fish in the north Pacific consume between 12,000 and 24,000 tons of plastic annually. Many of the fish, as well as crustaceons, end up on our diet, which means that whatever plastic these creatures are ingesting, we are also ingesting.
According to an article that I found online from Reuters New Service (https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC/0100B4TF2MQ/), we consume approximately five grams of plastic per week, which is the equivalent of a heaping teaspoonful of plastic. The same article went on to say that, monthly, we consume 22 grams of plastic, which is the equivalent of five casino dice and half of a rice bowl. So, imagine yourself consuming all of the dice from a Yahtzee game, plus half a ricebowl full of plastic. That would be your monthly plastic diet. Every six months, we ingest 125 grams of plastic, which is enough to fill a cereal bowl. Annually, we ingest 225 grams of plastic, which is enough to fill a dinner plate.
In the course of ten years, we ingest 2.5 kilograms of plastic, which is the equivalent of one life buoy. Could you imagine eating a life buoy? I’m sure that I would need to visit a dentist and a gastroenterologist after attempting to gobble down one of those. But that’s the amount of plastics that we are unknowingly consuming every ten years.
And how about this? In our lifetime, we ingest about 20 kilograms worth of plastic, which is more plastic than two recycling bins. That’s a lot of plastic, and that was the message that Christy Rupp brought attention to in her very creative and thought-provoking exhibit.
Plastics and a pipeline. It’s an interesting view of our industrial landscape. Well according to the information that I see online, plastics are used in pipeline. In the 1967 movie, “The Graduate,” Mr. McGuire (Walter Brooke) tells Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) at his college graduation party, ““Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it.”
I don’t know if Mr. McGuire ever anticipated that we would end up with plastic in our digestive system after consuming fish that had consumed discarded plastic. But this is the reality that Christy Rupp dramatically and vividly portrayed in her exhibit.
Take a look at Christy Rupp’s website for more information about her work, which includes art exhibits, books, and more (https://christyrupp.com/)
I am a Doctor Who fan. After reading this post I decided to go back and watch an episode that had to do with the plastic pollution.
That’s great! I am also a Doctor Who fan!