{"id":516,"date":"2021-01-07T16:24:15","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T16:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riverplasticities.climateactionchildhood.net\/?page_id=516"},"modified":"2021-02-15T01:48:44","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T01:48:44","slug":"exhibit","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/riverplasticities.climateactionchildhood.net\/index.php\/exhibit\/","title":{"rendered":"THE EXHIBIT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PLASTIC CHILDHOODS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the geological epoch of the 21st<\/sup> century now known as \u2018Anthropocene\u2019, in which human activity has dramatically shifted the earth\u2019s geo-biospheric systems, the explosive growth of plastic waste materials poses a pressing global crisis. Despite our wish to manage, control, and ultimately distance ourselves from plastic materials through recycling practices, this problem continues to escalate. Though the familiar \u2018three Rs\u2019 approach (reduce, reuse and recycle), attracts high levels of attention and compliance, it is ineffective because it takes waste \u2018out of sight and out of mind\u2019 and perpetuates consumerism. Recycling behaviours create an appeasing notion of individual morality and \u2018good citizenship\u2019, while veiling capitalist systems that create the accumulative logics<\/strong> that now fuel human life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Attuning to the symbolic life of plastics across childhoods in Cuenca, Ecuador, this exhibition illuminates a pedagogical attention to plastic as a material manifestation of neoliberal subjectivity. In early childhood education, plastic materials speak not only to a human desire for efficiency,<\/strong> but also make visible capitalist rationalities that inadvertently haunt pedagogical work. For example, pedagogical decision making is often informed by theories of children\u2019s development – progress-driven narratives which echo the individualist storylines of consumptive market economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet despite its toxicity, living with\/in the Anthropocene requires a reconceptualization of educational experiences that pay closer attention to how plastics hold interdeterminate <\/strong>relations with surrounding ecologies. Forming roots that hold together river banks, composing the nests of colibris and framing lattices for new forest saplings – plastics\u2019 adaptivity makes it impossible to throw away, and calls for new ethical engagements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracing the discourses attached to plastic materials at Nivel Inicial, this exhibition proposes that these all-too-familiar materials are not merely empty vessels for children\u2019s amusement or learning. Rather, they tell stories of human dependencies on progress, production and accumulation. Responding to these dependencies and configuring pedagogies within the aesthetics of increasingly synthetic worlds requires new ways of knowing plastic. Highlighting the vibrant agencies of plastics before-during-and after human use, this exhibit aims to notice the intimacy of our relations and co-formations with\/in plastic ecologies, keeping plastics \u2018in sight and in mind\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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El Centro Interamericano de Artesan\u00edas y Arte Popular<\/a> (CIDAP) \u2013 Cuenca, Ecuador<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 9th \u2013 May 20th, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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INSTALLATIONS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Short Film<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Wall of plastics<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Series<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Logics of Plastic<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Plastic childhoods traces the emergence of a pedagogical project that considers what might happen if researchers, educators, and children think with plastic to reconfigure childhoods in ways which can respond to times of ecological devastation. This exhibition is reflective of a pedagogical commitment to rethinking humans\u2019 relations with waste materials, and honors the reconceptualist engagements by educators, children and families at Nivel Inicial, Santana.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Installations from ‘Plastic Childhoods’ have been featured in Making-Time<\/a>, a digital exhibit at the inSEA World Congress<\/a> in Vancouver, BC (2019) and Disorientating the early childhood sensorium: Micro-interruptions for alternative climate futures<\/a>, a research-creation exhibit with the Responding to ecological challenges with\/in contemporary childhoods colloquium<\/a> at the Children’s Museum in London, ONT (2020).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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