Plastic
Remaking Our World
Plastics have shaped our daily lives like no other material. From food containers to electronic devices, from furniture to cars, from fashion to prefab buildings – with their almost limitless malleability, versatility, and economic production, plastics have spurred the imagination of designers and architects for decades. Originally associated with convenience, progress, even revolution, today plastics seem to have lost their utopian appeal. Plastics are everywhere, yet most conspicuous as waste and as a key factor in the global environmental crisis.
The Vitra Design Museum and V&A Dundee are now devoting a major exhibition to the history of plastic – its initial lure and the challenges it poses to present-day design, science, and politics. The exhibition »Plastic: Remaking Our World« examines the rise of plastic during the course of the twentieth century, analyses its environmental impacts, and presents current research and design projects geared towards a new, more sustainable use of plastic.
The exhibition explores how new approaches to plastics might lead the way from a linear towards a circular economy by reducing single-use products, improving recycling processes, and shifting from oil-based to biodegradable plastics made from renewable materials. More broadly, it reflects on consumer behaviour and raises the question how design can move beyond form to take full account of product and material lifecycles in their entirety.
An exhibition by the Vitra Design Museum, V&A Dundee and maat, Lisbon
Space
600 – 1,200 m² / 6,000 – 12,000 sq ft
Curatorial Team
Jochen Eisenbrand, Vitra Design Museum
Anna-Mea Hoffmann, Vitra Design Museum
Charlotte Hale, V&A Dundee
Lauren Bassam, V&A Dundee
Anniina Koivu, maat, Lisbon
Johanna Agerman-Ross, V&A
Corinna Gardner, V&A
Detailed information
Illustrated Concept
Exhibition Film
Exhibition tour
26.03.2022 – 04.09.2022, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
29.10.2022 – 05.02.2023, V&A Dundee, Dundee, United Kingdom
22.03.2023 – 28.08.2023, maat, Lisbon, Portugal
May 2024 – October 2024, Hyundai Motorstudio, Busan, Korea
For further information please contact Cora.Harris@design-museum.de.
