May 20–November 26, 2023
Venice
Italy
SPACES, in collaboration with the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will activate the US Pavilion at the 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale with site-specific installations that explore one of the most ubiquitous materials in our world: plastic. Curated by Tizziana Baldenebro, SPACES’ Executive Director, and Lauren Leving, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Everlasting Plastics provides a platform for artists and designers to engage audiences in reframing the overabundance of plastic detritus in our waterways, landfills, and streets as a rich resource. The exhibition will be on view May 20 through November 26, 2023.
“Inherent to art and architecture is the aesthetic and materiality of form. Everlasting Plastics bridges this divide by drawing on the power of looking to serve as an entry point for reconsidering our relationships to material worlds,” said Baldenebro. “As the climate crisis becomes a tangible reality, our daily objects must be agents of change. This exhibition extends SPACES’ commitment to supporting artistic experimentation by bringing together a range of practices that are examining, salvaging, and upending a global calamity.”
Five artists and designers—Xavi Aguirre (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Assistant Professor of Architecture); Simon Anton (Detroit-based designer); Ang Li (Northeastern University School of Architecture Assistant Professor); Norman Teague (University of Illinois at Chicago Assistant Professor in the School of Design); and Lauren Yeager (Cleveland-based sculptor)—will create site-specific works for the pavilion exploring plastic as a single, enduring material with infinite forms. In doing so, Everlasting Plastics invites a discussion about the ways that plastics both shape and erode contemporary ecologies, economies, and the built environment, while also suggesting possible alternatives and necessary re-imaginings for the ways in which plastics are deployed.
“From toys to camping coolers, plastic is deeply embedded in the culture of the United States, where polymers were perfected and exported,” said Leving. “Our toxic chemical relationship with the material is now a global phenomenon, requiring new approaches for addressing a widespread dependency around the world.”
Accompanying the exhibition is a publication produced in partnership with Columbia Books on Architecture and the City (CBAC)—a small imprint housed within Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, dedicated to expanding the ground of architectural discourse and rethinking the assumptions of practice. The publication, Sketches On Everlasting Plastics, unfolds new coordinates, perspectives, openings, references for understanding the exhibition and for thinking about the material beyond the scope of the US Pavilion.
Partnerships with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; Venice Lagoon Plastic Free; and other organizations will be the source of transnational programming that expands dialogue and action around the future of plastics. Accompanying the show, a lecture series, student courses, and workshops will draw parallels between Ohio’s largest industries, and the plastic waste accumulating on the banks of the Venetian Lagoon, connecting communities most affected by plastic production, pollution, and environmental mismanagement.
For updates on related exhibition programming, please visit everlastingplastics.org.
About the Organizing Institution
SPACES is a nonprofit alternative art organization based in Cleveland, OH with a mission to serve as a resource and public forum for artists who explore and experiment. Operating for over 40 years as a residency, exhibition space, and re-granting organization, SPACES commissions and presents major projects by artists-in-residence working in all media, provides resources to cultural producers, and serves as a welcoming access point for audiences to experience experimental concepts. Supported artists include Chloë Bass, Pope.L, Michael Rakowitz, Cooking Sections, and more. SPACES complements the exhibition and residency programs with creative engagement supporting their surrounding communities in Cleveland, hosting workshops, lectures, group tours, and skill-sharing events. Beyond programming, they provide nearly 150,000 USD in re-granted awards to artists and cultural producers around Cuyahoga County, infusing the region with unparalleled resources for creative work. spacescle.org
