b'on viewPLASTIC ENTANGLEMENTS: ECOLOGY, AESTHETICS, MATERIALS FEBRUARY 8JULY 28, 2019IN 2019, SCMA JOINED THE GLOBAL CONVERSATION alcove where blank postcards were available. Visitors about plastic and its ubiquity by presenting this timelywere invited to design and write their own postcard to a exhibition organized by the Palmer Museum of Art atcompany that uses plastic packaging for their products. Penn State University.The space included a list of suggested companies, along As noted by the Palmers curators, The storywith a mailbox where visitors could drop their completedof plastic is as complex as the polymer chains that makepostcards to be mailed by SCMA. During the run of up its unique material properties. Plastic Entanglementsthe exhibition, visitors created 1,144 postcards. The featured nearly 60 artworks by an international roster ofexhibition space also included two collaborative journal 30 emerging and mid-career artistsall grappling withstations where visitors could reflect and sha e. These the complexities of this material and the ways it has infi- invited responses with simple prompts: I wonder trated nearly every aspect of our lives. More than 22,000and I hope As one visitor poignantly noted, I hope people visited SCMA during the run of the exhibition,our Earth can heal. with over 5,000 attending the related programs.Collaborative programming provided further Three artists represented in the exhibitionopportunities for action. Maggie Newey, associate direc-16 visited campus during the spring 2019 semester. Diannator of academic programs and public education, reached Cohen uses plastic bags as her primary artistic medium,out to community partners who were already actively and she is also the co-founder and CEO of the Plasticresponding to the impact of plastic pollution in our Pollution Coalition, a global advocacy organizationregion. Among them was Leni Fried, an artist/printmak-addressing plastic pollution. On March 7, she presenteder from Cummington, Massachusetts, who developed a public talk to share her work as both an artist and anThe Bagshare Projecta community initiative to reduce activist. Artist Ifeoma U. Anyaeji was joined by scholardisposable bag waste by creating a share bag system Chelsea Mikael Frazier on March 26 in a panel discussionfor local stores. Today, the project focuses on diverting titled Neo-traditionalism and the Eco-ethics of the plastic seed, feed and brew bags from landfills byepur-African Feminist: Artist + Scholar in Dialogue. In theirposing them as reusable carrier bags. During the exhi-conversation, moderated by Emma Chubb, the exhibitionsbition, the museum hosted two bag-making workshops coordinating curator, they talked through intersectingon campus, and a related informational exhibit about the intellectual concerns ranging from Black feminist theoryproject was presented in the colleges Campus Center. to the details of Anyaejis plasto-yarning technique. The Connecticut River Conservancy (CRC) is a Finally, artist Aurora Robson was on campus on April 16nonprofit o ganization that advocates for the health of to present a public talk titled Re:Fuse. She discussedthe Connecticut River across four states. This includes her own creative practice and her efforts to connect artistscoordinating a huge Source to Sea Cleanup event every working with methods that intercept the waste stream.fall that invites thousands of volunteers to remove tons The exhibition team recognized early on thatof trash from the Connecticut River and tributary streams. we wanted to provide outlets for action as part of ourIn association with the exhibition, Newey connected programming. We included a Take Action stationwith partners at the CRC to design a smaller Mill River within the exhibition space: a desk area within a galleryCleanup event to remove trash from the river that runs on view \\ Plastic Entanglements: Ecology, Aesthetics, Materials'