Plastic City: A Small-Scale Experiment for Disrupting Normative Borders

Abstract

Since plastics became available in the 1950s, consumers have dealt with the issue of plastic discards by simply sending them “away”—considering them “out of sight and out of mind” and looking away from any responsibility for this material and its ongoing effects. In this article, an interactive exhibit was generated to provoke relational encounters between children and plastic discards. Situated on a university campus that wins annual awards for sustainability, Plastic City was erected anew each week; a compelling small-scale experiment regarding what is made visible and what is outcast in the utopian settler-colonial imaginary of the U.S. Pacific Northwest.