Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves
Sam-Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic, KunstMuseum, Bonn, COP23, Commissioned by ARTPORT_making waves

Sam Hopkins, The Ministry of Plastic (touring exhibition)

Installation at Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Germany, November  3-17, 2017

As a commission for GOOD FOOD COP23, the artistic program by ARTPORT_making waves for the UN Climate Change Conference COP23 celebrated in Bonn in November 2017, the artist Sam Hopkins (UK/Kenya) has developed the installation “The Ministry of Plastic (touring exhibition)”. The Ministry of Plastic (touring exhibition) is an installation that stages a future in which there is no more oil and plastic has become a cherished and valuable resource. Taking the form of a 20-foot shipping container, the installation functions as a future museum and recruitment centre.

At the centre of this museum is the sacred text of this future world, The Rubbish Companion. This is a guidebook to plastic, written in our future by an unknown hero and used by future governments to educate people into how plastic must be consciously used and recycled. The Ministry of Plastic (touring exhibition) contains one of very few perfect facsimiles of this book. Furthermore, the museum chronicles the demise of a plastic-fuelled society and the subsequent birth of a world in which everything is recycled and reused.

Employing the aesthetics and strategies of museum display, real and fictitious objects, carefully displayed in glass vitrines, narrate this story. The Ministry of Plastic (touring exhibition) does not merely function as a museum but uses this history and display of plastic with the purpose of recruiting young men and women to work in The Plastic Harvest. As, in this future, plastic resources are finite, any plastic finds in former landfills or remote corners of the oceans are incredibly valuable. An informational video revolves the emotional testimony of a young lady touching some wild plastic for the first time. Young people are encouraged to go and participate in this work, in much the same way as teenagers today go and volunteer in The Global South.

Combining fact and fiction, this installation tries to help us re-imagine a future in which recycling will become vital and necessary for survival and asks the question of who will control these recycled resources. Plastic is essential to the distribution and transport of consumer goods, it is the oil which smooths the mechanism of capitalism. Will recycling be placed at the service of a Neoliberal agenda, intent on perpetuating a capitalist ideology, or will it challenge, and even transcend it, suggesting genuinely sustainable, future methods of living?

With support of innogy Stiftung für Energie und Gesellschaft

Als Auftragsarbeit von ARTPORT_making waves für GOOD FOOD COP23, dem ARTPORT-Kunstprogramm für die Klimakonferenz der Vereinten Nationen in Bonn im November 2017. präsentierte der kenianisch-englische Künstler Sam Hopkins die interaktive Installation mit dem Titel “The Ministry of Plastic (touring exhibition)”. Dabei inszenierte er eine Zukunft, in der die Ressourcen der Welt erschöpft sind. Gezeigt wurde eine Sammlung von konfiszierten Plastikobjekten, Videos und Texten, anhand derer das Verantwortungsbewusstsein der Verbraucher im Umgang mit Plastik geschärft werden sollte. Diese performative Installation stellte eine Amnestie für Bürger dar, die unrechtmäßig Plastik aus dem zunehmend perfekten System von Konsum und Produktion entwendet haben. Besucher der Installation wurden darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass sie verpflichtet waren, sich von jeglichem ungesetzlichen Kunststoff zu trennen, der daraufhin als Beispiel für die Öffentlichkeit präsentiert wurde.

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung der innogy Stiftung für Energie und Gesellschaft

Commissioned by

With the support of

Energie und Gesellschaft gGmbH

Exhibition venue

kunstmuseum bonn

Partners

City of Bonn

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COP23

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seatrust-institute