- E Pluribus Pluribus (2025)
Aluminum, Injection-Molded Polypropylene, Polyurethane Rubber
“Plastic,” in its etymology, originates in the Ancient Greek “plastikos,” meaning "capable of being shaped or molded,” derived from “plastos,” which means “molded.” In my own language, to plasticize is to coat, to cover, to protect, to control, to wrap, to enshroud, to interface, to purify, to clean. Through these acts, plastic homogenizes, alienates, and deceives. Plastic is a paradox. In its ubiquity, plastic creates a monoculture that grows everywhere, reaching into every other material around it, making its way into our bodies and environments in ways we can barely now understand. Exponentially evolving with time, plasticization in all its forms has created a world where material consciousness is now more important than ever. “When the hierarchy of substances is abolished” (Barthes), our world entrenched in oil, plastic running through our veins, we must find new ways of directly engaging with this material culture: my work re-interprets plastic manufacturing as a performance of craft to resist material and labor alienation
When plastic was first introduced to the consumer market en masse, there was a sense of spectacle and theatricality around it. This is no doubt lost to some extent in our current era, as plastic becomes more and more seamlessly and invisibly integrated into our world. With the receding of spectacle, though, we also lose our perspective on plastic. I want to use my work to introduce a different sense of spectacle to this conversation, engaging with production in a new, reimagined performative mode to bring plastic to the surface of the material conversation. Taking on a theatrical, absurd language, translating plastic into nonsensical, contradictory material forms, I want to reconsider our relationship with it. “Pluribus pluribus” complicates design’s role in plasticization, as well as our complicity in the systems ultimately responsible for its production, both as designers and consumers.
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Displayed at Songs of a Decoy group show as part of NYC Design Week 2025 and Is it Cake? group show at Woods Gerry Gallery Providence as a part of RISD Thesis Exhibition