The amount of plastic on our planet is a problem we can no longer underestimate or ignore. Recent studies have estimated that by 2050 the volume of plastic in the oceans will exceed that of fish, not to mention the traces of plastic in some foods.
To raise awareness of this issue, artist, designer and filmmaker Robin Frohardt has worked to create The Plastic Bag Store, a small supermarket stocked exclusively with plastic products.
After collecting a large amount of plastic waste, including packaging, caps and bottles, Robin Frohardt started working with the material, reproducing some of the foods found in grocery shops. Tomatoes, bananas, apples, lemons, but also a fish counter with lobsters and sushi, a meat counter with congealed sausages, not to mention packaged products and drinks of all kinds: everything on display at The Plastic Bag Store is made of plastic.
In an original and amusing way, the artist wants to shed light on the amount of waste we produce every day and that, especially for plastic, when we throw it away it doesn’t magically disappear, but often persists over time polluting some remote corner of our Planet.
“The Plastic Bag Store is a visually rich, tactile and humorous experience that hopefully encourages a different way of thinking about the foreverness of plastic, the permanence of the disposable and that there is no ‘away’ when we throw something out.”
Read also: Sparrow Mart, a supermarket entirely made of cloth
The Plastic Bag Store was first presented to the public last year in New York and is currently open at the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA in Los Angeles.
