 Good afternoon. Hello, everybody. I'm Blair Thomas, and I'm the artistic director of the Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival, and I want to welcome you here to the second panel of the Ellen von Vogenberg Puppetry Symposium sponsored by the School of the Art Institute in collaboration with the Puppet Festival and We're all zooming in here on this online forum on a sunny day but cold here in Chicago and I just wanted to acknowledge that the The building that the fine arts is in where our offices are as well as all the theaters and venues that the festival is happening in across the city sit on the land of the Anishinaabe nations peoples that were That had surrounded those wondrous great lakes. I can actually see Lake Michigan here The cold waters from here. It's a beautiful region. It included the Pottawatomie in the Peoria and the Sock tribes and They have been the stewards of these grounds for centuries and for this we express our gratitude This afternoon's panel is Happening now online and we're also recording it in collaboration with howl rounds. Some of you all may be tuning in through the The howl round network and and others may be coming in directly through zoom. Those of you on zoom you can you can Send us questions in the chat as the as with a question section opens up at the end and Those on howl round can do similarly and those questions will get to our moderator and There's also there's a An option to see the close captions that you can setting on the bottom of your screen You can it says live transcript CC and you can you can just click that little thing And then you can see the words appear as they're spoken. I'm watching my words be yes, so Well, I am with great joy getting to present the the our moderator who is was The Principal person the principal person in making the plastic bag store project come to Chicago Julie Moeller is currently serving on the board of the puppet festival But she is an environmental advocate and an active volunteer and philanthropist Who has them the model of plant seeds for trees for others to sit under and she's been passionate about Educating about the environment and about sustainability specifically about eliminating single-use plastics She's on has been on a mission to decrease the corporate plastic production and consumer use and so she found the plastic bag store on her own and We had been Had worked with Robin Frilhardt in our past festival and knew about her project And then we got to meet Julie and that collaboration has begun and we have been working very strong for the past year to bring this project to Chicago Julie has She has been involved in sustainability certificate programs and community colleges and she she traveled the Bali and she Don't work on a cleanup mission and serve on community boards and doing a lot of grass roots campaigning and besides Serving as a volunteer with the one earth film festival. She is on the board of directors of the Chicago International Public Theater Festival and so without further ado, I turn our Panel over to Julie great Thanks Blair. I'm really excited to be part of the the festival this year that's that's happening Despite all obstacles and I'm so excited that we were able to bring the plastic bag store To Chicago and right on Michigan Avenue at the Wrigley building. So I hope a lot of you have been able to see it and today we have Dr. Sasha Atkins with us as well as Robin and I'm going to go ahead and Introduce Sasha first and then we'll hear from Robin And Sasha has some slides to share with us as does Robin and I'm going to start the discussion Sasha Atkins holds a master's degree in international health and a phd in environmental studies And teaches environmental health at Loyola University, Chicago's school of environmental sustainability They are author from disposable culture to disposable people the unintended consequences of plastic And it's this book. It's actually a really full of great information about Plastics, polymers, what we're doing to society with the disposability of all the single use plastic It's a great book. I also want to thank Sasha for Inviting Robin into her class that she was teaching on plastics and thank Robin for being there It was a great discussion among the students And and people that are going to be Helping us with this plastic pollution problem well into the future. So with that, I'd like to introduce Sasha Thank you so much Julie. It's really an honor to be here today And I also am very grateful to you and to Robin for making my January term plastics class Much more useful to the students with your presence there so One of the things that I admire And have hope in about art is its ability to change the dominant narrative So I thought today what we would go over would be My wish list if you will of how we can shift these conversations around plastics So I'm sure you've all seen That by 2050 there will be much in the ocean I suspect but don't have data to prove that it may already be The case that there's more plastics than fish in the ocean because we haven't been measuring what Contained in the biomass what fish have swallowed? Nanoplastics we don't have a good idea of how much is really on the seafloor But it's not just an oceans problem I grew up living on a sailboat for seven years And I do feel that the ocean is my spiritual home And that is how I became involved in Studying plastics and working to try to reduce their production But what I've come to see is it's much much bigger And I think that this Part of the story about the air and the land isn't yet In the public consciousness Next slide, please This is one of the scary statistics that The total mass of plastics Ever produced those in use and those that have not been incinerated Because unless it's burned it's all here with us Very small amounts have been eaten by microbes, but The total mass of plastics already exceeds the total mass of all living mammals And I have a study up here that shows that If we don't consider Plants if we're just looking at animals There's already twice as much plastic as there are Animals by weight on the planet Next Which means that we have already passed A planetary boundary For what is called novel entities Which includes The whole category of synthetic polymers And other synthetic chemicals that are not polymerized So put together We have already put so much of these anthropogenic often toxicants into The water the land and the air More than the capacity of the planet To process it to break it down to make it safer We've already passed that planetary boundary And this is what it looks like next We're blurring the boundaries Between what is anthropogenic and what is quote nature I personally feel that one of the Problems we have Is this idea that there's a separation between humans and the quote environment between nature And what's urban But this Is called a plastic glomerate And it's embodying The blurring of these boundaries for us in a very Visceral way So what you're seeing here Is plastic That became part of the rock This particular one They believe that it was at a campfire Where some of the plastic melted Into the rock But we are creating a layer On the planet Of plastic debris The sand that you see next to the rock Next to the disposable pen, which is by the way also plastic I've read studies that show that much of that sand is not Weathered rock anymore. It's weathered plastic Next Next slide please So this is the article that made quite a splash Saying that we're no longer in the geological era called the hollow scene Now we are in the plasticine Next please And the response by those who are profiting from the manufacture Of all of these Polymers all of these chemicals Is that it's useful that it's indispensable And that as long as we quote keep it out of the environment And we always see these words manage it properly as long as we manage it properly, there won't be a problem And this leads people to think that as long as we keep it out of the ocean Then it won't be harmful I used to be one of those who would Cut the six pack plastic wings with scissors so that it wouldn't entangle Birds or other creatures and thought that I had done my part and now it was okay to use them But what I've come to see as I've studied plastics is that Once you've manufactured it it is in the environment And the only options we have for waste Are to move it around in space often we move it from Wealthier areas where it's disposed of to black and brown communities low-income communities and what is called I call toxic colonialism some have termed waste colonialism So we move it around in space we bury it in the ground And hope that future generations will know what to do with it Because it won't disappear buried in the ground or We move it from one form to another so from a solid waste problem To an air pollution problem by incinerating it There's equipment on some of these incinerators, which are euphemistically termed waste to energy Even thermal recycling But when those filters are full something must be done with them Those chemicals didn't go away in fact as your burning plastics new toxicants are created So those filters themselves are often incinerated Or sent to a low-income community of color to be buried in the ground and so What we've been programmed to believe is that recycling is the solution But recycling is only prolonging the time until it is either incinerated or buried in a landfill Or Just released to continue moving through the environment. It's always in the environment It's just moving through the environment in different ways Next please So here are some examples of how this Plastic moves through the environment You may be familiar with the song The earth, the air, the fire, the water Return, return, return, return Here the ants are carrying the plastic Around the earth The bird is eating mosquito larvae that have eaten plastic The mosquito larvae are in the water As the birds eat them they return to the earth Chemicals like PFAS chemicals That are used to put out fires. Those are also technically a synthetic polymer Are moving into the water Are drinking water And as these chemicals and tiny bits of plastic move through the food webs Next They're moving through our bodies as well One statistic shows that we are eating the equivalent of a credit card a week In microplastics And some researchers are saying but we don't yet know if that's harmful But as I've done literature reviews on the chemicals that are used To make these plastics both the monomers the building blocks All the additives the catalysts The accidental products of the reaction We know that many many many of those Are definitely toxic to us and so As it moves through us the question is Is it being absorbed through our gut into our bloodstream? Some studies have shown that that is the case That it is moving Through the placenta there have been tiny bits of polystyrene Which when expanded is styrofoam found on the baby side of the placenta There have been tiny plastics In the stool the poop Of all the people studied And some of the most common plastics in our poop are pictured here Polyethylene pterothalate which is what makes up single-use plastic water bottles and polypropylene which is one of the One of the uses of that is yogurt containers But what has been found in human stool is Tiny fibers of these things So that implies that maybe the polyethylene pterothalate bottle was used to make A Patagonia fleece jacket And when you wash that fleece jacket Thousands of fibers are released into the water When you um Are handling it it's released into the air and we breathe that and so These are moving through the environment Next please and one of the concepts That i've been fascinated by is this idea of toxic trespass that we should have a right To say what is put into our bodies this Picture of the placenta with the fetus is showing that as Can cook the head of environmental working group likes to put it Babies are born pre-polluted They have no say in that But we can extend this concept also to wildlife They did not choose To be polluted with microplastics We look at Plants that are taking micro and nanoplastics and their associated chemicals Up through the root systems um What is the Way that we can stop polluting the planet with plastics and Begin the process of cleanup And in order to imagine that we need the imagination of artists And that is what I charge you with today Thank you I think thank you so much That I know it can be really overwhelming the i've gone through that journey myself I used to cut my plastic as well and as an advocate I started you know with recycling with my kids and as I learned more I learned that we have to come up with stronger you know advocacy and informing people and that is One of the reasons that you know, I You used to do the beach cleanups with my kids and the recycling, but I you know with 40 percent of our plastic Being all single-use plastic It's really time to think about what we're leaving behind what we're doing to our bodies and and how we want to you know For future generations. So when I read the article on the plastic bag store Well, first of all, I had about you know Six or seven friends send it to me as well because they knew my obsession with plastic But when I read about it, I thought what a new and fresh way to You know, you know show people the problem And without a bunch and what I love Robin is that you know, you walk into the store and it's it's humorous, but it it gets across The the problem and it doesn't throw a bunch of facts at you You know, I've stood in front of people and said, oh, you know plastic bag only lives for 12 minutes the average life and but you know until you really can be in the store I think it's really a powerful message. So You have to excuse me. I'm going to read your bio just so I don't miss anything. So I just want to introduce Robin Throw heart is an award-winning artist puppeteer puppet designer and director living in brooklyn new york Throw hearts performance and puppetry based work has been presented at st. Anne's warehouse and here arts new york city as well national venues Including the pittsburgh international festival of first and the next now festival in mariland Her films have been screened at the telluride film festival aspen short fest maritime film festival and the parish museum and puppets on film Festival at bam original play pigeoning Debuted in 2013 as part of the chicago international puppet theater festival and was hailed by the new york times as a tender fantastical Symphony of the imagination and has been translated into german greek Arabic and turkish She has received a creative capital award and a distilled distilled fellowship from carolina performing arts for the plastic bag store Which premiered in partnership with timesquare arts in 2020 as we all know right as covid started And is touring now both in the u.s. And abroad she's been the recipient of made in new york woman's fund grant award and Guggenheim fellowship among other awards She's a mcdallow fellow and a member in good standing of both the wall greens and the cbs programs So with that I turn it over to um robin I would like to add one thing is now robin's film is going to be Featured in the one earth film collective in chicago in march. So we can add that to your resume in the future So thank you. Great. Yeah. Um, thanks for having me and i'm glad that we can still do this online um So I guess um, i'm going to talk a little bit about the project for those who Don't know. Um, this is a picture of the plastic bag store in timesquare and and so the plastic bag store is a is an installation and um immersive film, uh, but basically it it's a fake grocery store in a real store front Uh, in which everything is made out of plastic bags, uh, everything inside plastic bags or single-use plastic We can go the next slide The these are sort of some examples. So um, we collected all different kinds of bags and containers and lids and bottles And sculpted them into, you know, pretty elaborate produce section And and we also designed a bunch of our own labels if we can go to the next slide. I think maybe there's Uh, yeah, so we like made a whole meat department. You know, those are all used meat trays Uh, and then we designed some of our own original packaging And then, you know, filled those boxes with more plastic crap that we collected Uh, next slide Um, we have like a whole magazine section. And so yeah, the idea is, you know, it's basically One joke repeated one million times That it is a store that only sells bags and that everything is all bags bags bags all the time Um, so you can go the next slide Uh, cigarettes Um a lot of detail every all of the boxes have like recipe lists and Games on the backs of cereal and there's a pretty elaborate bakery that I don't have a picture of here But we can go the next slide Um, you know, all of this is uh, this is a some of the bottled water that we have at the store, which is Uh, pacific geyer, which is, you know, sort of representing The the gyres in the ocean where all of the like broken down pieces of plastic are Are are gathering as sort of what the slurry looks like up there, unfortunately Uh, next slide Yeah, and so basically, you know, the the installation itself, you know, sits sits in a real storefront right now It's in in the bottom floor of the Wrigley building here in Chicago. Um, but As I was, you know, researching Um plastic pollution as I came up with this idea because originally the idea was just to make this funny installation just to sort of You know Highlight how much packaging I was encountering on my trip to the grocery store. It seemed so funny I thought I would like turn it up to 11 Um and see how ridiculous we could make it Um, and so as I was like designing these products and thinking about the project I I I I read that, you know, that all the plastic that's ever been created Um still exists somewhere. Um, you know, because nothing eats plastic, right? It just breaks down into smaller pieces, but you know, the the thought that a straw that I used for a happy meal in the 80s might be somewhere still floating around is a really kind of Abstract thought and it it sort of made me think, you know, that if like a Greek pot You know that that's thousands of years old that we Still have those and we're definitely people thousands from years from now are surely going to have water bottles. Um, and that those are sort of the the the pottery shards of our era and I have a My previous work has been I've made installations and and and sculptured before but I Uh, my last project was a puppetry play. Um called The Pigeoning Which I brought to Chicago in 2019 Uh, and it's you know, it's very narrative driven. And so I started the to conceptualize this story that would fit inside the plastic bag store and that the plastic bag store itself Would transform into a theatrical space in which we would tell this story. Um, and so This is like a scene from the first part of the puppet show. There's several different styles of puppetry that we use Um, but the show starts in the ancient past and it's a shadow puppet play about someone in in ancient greek times who Um, you know, everyone has like a beautiful vase that they carry around and uh A young man invents a single use disposable vase Uh in this time and start selling single use disposable vases in the market and it it causes a lot of problems They start collecting and he starts importing Vases and you know, basically bottled water from other other parts of the of the world too And it's basically just framing what we're doing with bottled water But in the context of this ancient greek civilization, it's actually quite funny And so that's the first part of the play plays sort of ancient past present day and far off future um, and the the present day Character who I don't have pictured here, but you know She she works in a museum in our time and it's sort of an admirer of these pots from the past And she's a custodian of the museum And sort of the conduit through which all the you know garbage from the museum gets passed. You know, she's constantly cleaning up And uh, she she She sort of makes the connection that uh her plastic water bottle could perhaps last as long as a as a vase in the future and so she She writes a message to the future and puts it into a Plastic bottle inside of a bag with some other items and drops it into the trash Which is sort of like a a portal to the future, which I sort of liked the idea of the Plast of a trash can being like a a portal into the future because you think that that stuff's going somewhere But it's not going anywhere. It's sticking around so um I think go to the next slide um We watch sort of uh her trash uh make this journey from the present day to the far off future and this is another style of Storytelling that we use. This is a an all cardboard You know, it looks like an animation technically. It's puppetry But we watch her bag of of plastic trash make this journey from the present day into the far off future All in this sort of like sped up cardboard animation You can go the next slide And then it's discovered by this guy in the future unearths her plastic bag and takes apart You know, he finds the message in the bottle But it's all been faded and lost to time really except that she had written part of it on a cvs receipt and the only letters that are legible are Most valued customer at the bottom of the receipt and so he sort of misinterprets her um misinterprets that to mean That most valued customer that she was the most valued practitioner of the ancient customs And therefore incredibly important and therefore all of these items that he's found are extremely valuable and have a lot of significance If we can go the next slide Uh, so this is sort of him as he starts to collect more and more plastic artifacts and he's Constantly misinterpreting them and what they are and what they did and how important they were to us This is him holding a toothbrush, which he he kind of identifies with as a human figure because they have the same facial hair Next slide um, and so Or this is another part of the cardboard film that we sort of see the museum That helen had worked at sort of post apocalyptic submerged Uh, but we can go the next slide Um, and so then the audience in the end this future character creates a museum um Of the museum of the most valued customer in which all of all of the artifacts that he's found are are on display and all completely Wrong of what he thinks everything is. Uh, I think there's another one more slide here um Really yeah, there's probably a couple so it's like, you know a lot of things that you know I really liked the idea of things that we think of as completely invaluable and mass produced and meaningless like being You know Having so much significance and value in the future Uh, I think there's one more slide Yeah, so he think because he found a message in the bottle from her He thinks that all bottles contain messages and that they were like letter carriers and he thinks that these Uh lids are our compasses Um, and so the audience then you know sees these parts of the story Are presented within the grocery store and then as things like a lot of the grocery store shelves and displays transform into Playing spaces and and audience seating and then at the end the audience gets to like tour in real space this Museum that's been hidden to them until then. Um, and so Yeah, I really um Yeah, this I I was really interested in just You know telling this story and giving some sort of historical or just context, um Um for How long this stuff lasts because I think it's so just designed to be invisible It's designed to move in and out of our hands and be gone Uh, and not to be thought about ever again. Um, but it really is it's really quite permanent. Um And it's you know, so it's it's funny to think of these things being in a museum, but it's that's the reality and um It's interesting because that's not really probably how we want to be remembered. Um, but it but it probably is. Um And so, you know, I think with the plastic backstory I You know, you know everything You know the All of the just overwhelming facts of plastic pollution. Um It can be Really tragic and can feel overwhelming and I I feel like that. Um, I think it's really uh easy to sort of um Try not to think about it or just be like wow what can I do? Um, and so I guess I was sort of trying to You know, this is my this is me processing my feelings about it. Uh, and trying to you know, this is the one This is the thing that I do. So this is how I'm approaching the project or the problem. Um, but also just to give people a more Engaging and humorous and and way way to approach this stuff without feeling So overwhelmed and hopeless that hopefully we like if we can like laugh at ourselves We can kind of process this a little our feelings about it and then maybe move on and try to do something about it Um, and we have a you know in the in the store in the Wrigley building We we have a big qr code. Um that people can scan and it will connect them to local groups. Um This is something that really helped put together Um to help people connect locally with with some of the activism that's going on around around the issue uh, because a lot of these things do Require action locally That seems to be the way that most um plastic bag bands and any sort of legislation Seems to be happening. So it's great that we can help connect people in that way And yeah Unmute myself. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Robin That was that was a great overview for those of you who haven't seen it I would encourage if you have a question to put it in the chat or raise your hand um for either Robin or Sasha and I was going to ask uh, you know, I did see the performance on opening night and You know, I did hear a couple people when they were leaving say, you know, I you know, I feel so guilty and Yeah, you know, I know that's not really your your intention But it is a common response and then people like Helen, you know, don't know what to do And I was just wondering like how do how important was it for you to have the satire? You know, because it is with the gravity of the the production, you know How did you balance that? Yeah, I mean, it's tried to pack it full of as many jokes as possible Okay, um, I I understand that feeling guilt. I feel really guilty too, but I don't know it doesn't It's not really our fault necessarily, you know, like it's um We don't have a lot of choices about where a lot of our food and and beverages come from in a lot of ways. There's certain choices that we can make. Surely everyone could reduce what they use um, but I think that it's Yeah, that it's on us to recycle all this stuff is and it It's a little bit of a misdirection. I feel like it's on the manufacturers and the people who are making it But I think that, you know, I definitely don't aim to Make people my hope is that people don't feel too bad. I think it's just you know Just giving some context and and putting it in the people's brains and and consciousness um That, you know, I think that it will help Though there has to be a greater cultural shift. I think that happens that makes this Undesirable enough enough so that manufacturers stop. I mean, I think it's going to take everything that has to be personal choices. There has to be legislation um, but there but there also just has to be um enough people who who understands and that will change the you know, sort of the The way we think as as a the society Yeah, it's it's good to start with the laughing and then look at yourself and then what can I do for the greater? you know society with legislation I agree so Sasha, how do you um You know, you're teaching students that you know, how how do you Keep them from being so dismayed or you know When you're talking about this Well, I think that it's important as you were saying Robin to go back to the corporate responsibility and um point out that the crying Indian ad from keep america beautiful Was reframing this whole thing as a litter problem when in fact they were just fighting a bottle bell And the whole carbon footprint idea was created by fossil fuel companies So there's all of this put on us to make us feel bad about ourselves And I do want my students to be angry. I want that to move them into action that um This isn't simply something that individual choices can solve. It's a collective problem and I want to point to examples of art and examples of activism that show us how we can Make different choices collectively Yeah, I I like what you said Robin at one time that kind of one thing that spurred not just when you were at the grocery store They were tripled back in your items, you know, you were like, ah and I I've had tons of aha moments as well my aha moment is um Is that you used to open cartons, you know, you didn't have the little plastic And then the little plastic inside and I remember just opening that one day and the plastic tab broke And I thought you know, why can I just open this like a carton? I mean who made it like we already solved that Yeah, I know Who made the decision, right? So that now like eggs coming in plastic. It's like why are we we already had solutions You know, and now it's like now you can get fancy ones that come in Cardboard again or something. Yeah, but if you pay more Yeah, it's really weird to move backwards. I mean, that's what people often are like We'll we'll have to invent all these new solutions are like, how are we going to live without it? And it's like you don't even have to use your imagination like just ask your mom what they did Like, you know, it's really just like one generation, you know, it's like It is we weren't dehydrating constantly I tell my kids that I used to go to water. Yeah Yeah, I used to go to I went to florida for the first time in ninth grade and we brought back strawberries and we had them on our lap On the plane because you couldn't get them in iowa in the winter and you know, they're like, what? But do you have any like plastic items sasha that you're just like Like what the heck? well The plastic items that bother me are the ones that are hygiene theater right now that are giving people a false sense of security so All of this packaging that has for your safety, we've sealed it with an extra layer of plastic um, we see with the pandemic all of that taking off and We're trading biological threats for chemical ones and that really bothers me but I guess The thing that made me the most angry was many many years ago I was in the airport in miami and I saw them wrapping suitcases with saran wrap They would be put on a spindle and then wrapped in layer upon layer and that was designed to keep your luggage safe In the cargo hold so that people wouldn't open it. I guess if your lock isn't sufficient. So I just felt like that was Really, um, necessary. Yeah Yeah, in the in the pandemic for a while many coffee shops like Wouldn't accept a personal cup You know, I'd be like, can you put your my latte in here and they'd be like, oh, we can't take your Personal belongings back here because of cove it and then but they would take my Yeah, when it yeah, there's a lot of that like hygiene theater. Yeah. Yeah so, um another question is that So I know that you maybe did you you started with the plastic bag store installation and then And then you wanted to tell a story. Why did you feel that puppetry was maybe, you know, the best way to convey? You know, uh, such a large, you know problem and how did that fit into telling the story? um, well, it's yeah, it's definitely like a form that I was already pretty immersed in and I um I find that people Like trust puppets a little bit more than they trust people um, there's like a certain layer of judgment that they don't you know have like If a person came out and was Giving you this lesson you might be a little bit more defensive or I don't know like when an actor walks on stage um You're kind of your brain is like evaluating them as a person You know, they're an actor first of all, you know, they're not really if an actress played Helen in the movie, you know, you Know, she's not really Helen um, she's somebody playing Helen and you're like evaluating her performance and you know, you're sizing her up or are you attracted to her? Do you like what she's the choices she's made like there's all this kind of like Stuff going on but like when the puppet Helen is there. It's like she is Helen. She's not someone playing Helen She is that character 100 all the time um, and puppets already kind of like become they you know, because they like represent humans they're sort of already metaphors in a way and so they're um they're kind of great like Representation like every man's or something they already like represent something so they're sort of these great sort of like symbolic characters that um that I think it's easy to to To tell stories that way and people are already like they're engaged on it in a new way when they watch puppetry Yeah, so Do you have anything to add with that Sasha or you can nod in your head in agreement that we can kind of relate more to Helen and Yeah, yeah when I watched the film it was so easy to Let my guard down and be touched by the characters And take the story in I really think that it was um a magical world that we were entering And I really appreciated it Robin No, thank you I I one thing that kind of struck me so reading Sasha your book you say um that we Your book emphasizes we don't need disposability. We need authentic relationships with neighbors places and ourselves and Wait, do you Do you think that could be part of the solution with you know single-use plastic? I see a lot of people turning to plastic as a way to separate themselves from each other Here's something virgin that's never been touched It's wrapped in shrink wrap and no one's ever put their hands on it before which is ridiculous because of course a worker made it Maybe in conjunction with a machine, but we're wanting to like that suitcase wrapped in saran wrap We want to cocoon ourselves away from others and have things that are just mine and I Love the idea of thrifting a second hand that we can pass things down that have stories attached to them Here this is from my grandmother. Let me tell you when she got it and now you can use it and I think that relationships Promote trust and if we had more trust we wouldn't need all of this Protective wrapping around ourselves My core philosophy is that the way we treat things Becomes the way we regard ourselves in each other. So if we think of everything as only instrumentally valuable Then we see ourselves as only something with use value. Am I productive today? Yes. Good job What is that if we had An inherent value recognized for ourselves in each other, then we wouldn't need to Dispose of things once they had a scratch or once they were imperfect And I really feel that this is an environmental justice issue Because then that becomes how we treat people Who are considered disposable? So I go thank you I I agree and I Robin have a follow-up to that and then we're going to open it up to some questions Like I said, raise your hand or put it in the chat, please and we're happy to share um So I don't know if this was direct, but I think of disposability and being kind of isolating and You know, I think about either the block party where you bring your plates You bring your dish and your casserole And Robin when I was watching the film, I noticed that Thaddeus was really the only one who had interaction with other people and Helen and you know the explorer Seemed very isolated in their world and and I didn't know if that was just something I I was thinking or if you had any thoughts on that and just that you think that the future is going to kind of be this lonely place Well, I definitely thought of them both as kind of the Helen and the future guy to be lonely characters and then to be connected in this way, you know by their by the things that Like the objects they'd both touched, you know So yeah, I hadn't really thought about it in relation to Thaddeus. Yeah, and his whole like village in the past. Yeah But I you know, I think maybe it's You know, they they both of those characters sort of romanticize the past in in a lot of ways like Helen, you know Even though this vase that she's looking at is kind of the same vase from the Past that we kind of just saw this parable or it was disposable And mass produced but to her it's on the it's on the pedestal in the museum and so beautiful and special and she and and then She thinks that, you know, her time is sort of like disposable and meaningless or whatever, but then in the in the future You know, he's sort of looking looking back and and Idealizing her times and the customers and what great people they were and And a lot of that is just me sort of feeling like yeah I grew up in a town that was like mostly Shopping centers and and I always sort of felt like I didn't come from anywhere Or I didn't have a culture or something and that like you know, the past was I go to the museum and you see this the statues and the carvings and you're like no those those were real people or something You know, and it's like kind of wanting to you know Place myself in in the long line of human history and be like, oh, we are also people. We also make this there's no real It all is you know, like we talked about this Sasha Just like it all is it all is a part of the is-ness and it's like, you know, maybe some things are more valuable or meaningful than others, but you know, it's Even even the things that are disposable are here and are real and are ours and will be found and you know, I think Sort of want wanting to like infuse some some meaning into these things that felt disposable We do have one question from Tom. Yeah Oh, you're done Sorry, everyone. This is Tom Lee from the Chicago Puppet Festival. Thank you so much Sasha Robin and Julie for this awesome A discussion we were having a couple questions come in through howl round and also at this point We want to invite anybody inside the zoom meeting to unmute themselves and if you'd like to ask a question to one of the panelists you can choose the The reaction button and raise your hand digitally or you can just raise your real hand But let's start first of all here's a question coming from Steven who's watching live on howl round And Steven is asking about their own personal experience as a consumer As a consumer, I've sorted plastic metal and paper separately from other landfill garbage I've done this for years thinking it's recyclable I suspect there may be a problem after my disposables are sorted and collected. What can we do to solve this? I mean, I can kind of speak to that that As Sasha has said as well, but You know, there's there's so much of it and there's just You know recycling is a problem is not the answer, but it's not also not It's not a bad thing. I mean aluminum can be recycled infinitely and Paper, but it's just that there's so much plastic that we can't we don't have the infrastructure and I hate to see people lose faith and In a market for things that can be like glass and recycling for aluminum It's just You know, I mean, I don't know Sasha if you can speak to that as well But it's just that our dependence and our thinking that plastic can solve everything You know, it's yes, it's it's waste management's problem But you know recyclers are also, you know, mercs and they're trying to do the right thing by finding markets for this, but I don't know. It really needs to be overhauled on so many levels that I do think that I hate to see people lose faith, but we we've got this Disposable convenience that we just do the single you single stream recycling but You know, and we need to make manufacturers more responsible for what they're Making but Sasha, maybe you can answer that a little bit more eloquently Well, actually, I wanted to point people to this book, which I guess with the lighting is hard to see But it's recycling reconsidered by Samantha McBride Is a great book. She actually wrote around with sanitation workers in New York City for a year and does art as well and Is talking about the need to disaggregate plastics from other kinds of recycling so Recycling aluminum and recycling Fabric in the beginning was great the cotton would turn into paper And there could be continuous loops of some of these things others were degraded and were downcycled But at one point It became a word that had so much Virtue attached to it that the serral report Which was A consulting company that the state of california commissioned to answer the question Where should we put our lulus our locally undesired land uses? and How do we get resistance Overcome by these communities and this was one of the first In print where they're saying oh site and they were paid to say this imprint Sighted in low-income communities of color because they don't have the social power to fight back But the other piece of what they were saying was call it recycling and then people won't object So now we have advanced recycling chemical recycling thermal recycling, which is just burning plastics And we have recycling of nuclear waste. We have recycling of Of things that have no business being recycled because they're inherently toxic And we're just continuing to move those toxic chemicals into new pathways of exposure And so I want to reclaim the word recycling and apply it to things that actually can Be closed looped recycled Even aluminum cans though now are lined with Right and foil often has a a polymer Coating on it. So it's really challenging paper can be coated with PFAS chemicals or you know polyethylene to make it glossy So it's shifted the whole idea of recycling and what that means But I just want to share really briefly which is an idea from Samantha McBride's book She said the best kind of recycling was when you had a pig in your backyard And when there was food scraps that you couldn't eat like banana peels you feed it to the pig And then at some point you give thanks to the pig and have protein And so if that works for you with your religious and dietary needs that was That was a circle But um closer systems are definitely the answer. Yeah, but That's a that's a tough one the recycling market, but Um, we do have a question As artist, can I go ahead with this tom or yeah, I was just gonna say there's a question in the in the chat for you As artist, how can we represent not only the permanence of plastic but the actual changing of nature? In the brilliant plastic bag store We assume that severe weather is our fault, but the jellyfish he's eating might be part plastic The ice might be part plastic and it was plastic bags How do we even think about the anthropogenic markers? So Yeah, that's that's a loaded question even yeah So as artists, how can we represent not only the permanence of plastic but the actual changing of nature is yeah, so Yeah, I mean, I don't know that's I know that's how I did it I guess keep producing art is one answer, right? I mean I found it really hard to like Write or think about the future You know, it's like impossible to We had a lot of discussions when we were creating it of just like Well, what what did this character have what knowledge did he have? What didn't he what tools? You know really like but how how would he have this if he didn't know about that or you know, it was like impossible to like Invent something entirely new without all of the Things that you know and also like how do I convey it to the audience that you know what he's doing If you know, he has to be like fishing or he has to have some similar tools At his disposable for the audience even recognize what he's doing. It was really hard to like Imagine the future and I definitely all of the like all the like sci-fi stuff and that I like Is when there's not a lot of answered questions, you know, where everything's kind of vague um, there's not a lot of real specific language and You can kind of just leave it up to your imagination about What's going on there or I don't say when it is Or exactly what he's doing out there um I have my my own thoughts about it, but I yeah, I think I definitely It's kind of a cop-out, but I tried to just leave as much to the audience's imagination as possible Yeah, I don't think it was a cop-out. I I Someone who knows a bit about plastic and you know even for Sasha to watch it and to be able to get something out of I thought was really beautiful when you had him Want to go get more and he did the scuba diving and then you had the shelves. I thought that was A really nice way to bring it back to to present time. I thought that was very effective. So Okay, Tom Sorry, we're just getting a we're just getting a um a question from howl round from john bell And the question is this it's kind of puppetry centered Many puppeteers work with paper cloth wood leather and other materials. This is mostly for Robin How is plastic to work with both technically and philosophically? Well, um, it was it was You know, I I had made all cardboard projects before And I really like working with just one material and seeing how far you can push it, you know, just Just cardboard glue and knife that I feel like when I'm limited by a material sometimes it It I get really inspired As opposed to being like, oh, you could make anything out of anything and then I'm like I have zero ideas But it's like you can make just as anything that's in a city It's out of cardboard and then I'm just like it can go nuts. So it's very fun to Try to do this with the new material like with the plastic bags and be like, okay It's just plastic bags and stuff that you can make in a grocery store um And you know at first it was kind of frustrating because it I was so used to cardboard's structural um integrity and nice matte finish, which I really like but uh But you know, I learned about it. I definitely had to do some things that probably weren't great for me Uh, a lot of touching of plastic bags some taping some gluing some melting some shrinking um And you know, it's like I definitely have a different relationship to them than most people probably because you know, I like despise them, but I also Collect them and I also am really like attracted to certain colors. And so I also have like a kind of like affinity for plastic bags You know if I see someone with a Unique color plastic bag like walking bar. I'm like I covet their plastic bag um So yeah, it's it's definitely like changed the way that I think about it. Um as a material, you know as you know I hate it, but I but I'm also always looking for it You probably have a real fascination with yeah different colored plastic because yeah, as you said wasn't was it Red and orange were the hardest to yeah, I'm always on the hunt for red and orange too Yeah, and then you go to different countries and the plastic bags like feel different and yeah That's that's interesting. Do you think you'll continue to work with plastic or? Um, I think my next project will be totally different actually. Yeah, I think I probably shouldn't work with plastic bags for Hands on for the rest of my life. It's probably not that good for me But hopefully this project will continue to have its life and and to tour around Yeah Well, um, are there any other questions tom from Well, we have one more um one more also from um, nancy on howl around and she's kind of asking Um, uh, some of the things that you've addressed robin and her question is about artists specifically How can artists avoid using these non recyclable materials? um, um popular Popular foam which is used for a lot of hand puppets deteriorates and is not such a great material It's bad for museums as well as the environment. Um, there's been an amazing renaissance of cardboard theater and um paper theater and crankies um What what kind of things would you suggest to artists in terms of their own personal practice? I know we cannot solve the problems all individually ourselves But what are some maybe good things we can think about as artists making work? Yeah, I mean, I definitely like you know Part of the thing about making the cardboard and and the plastic bag stores all that stuff was free You know at least that part of it was you know gathering those materials Um, but yeah, I mean it's it's it's unfortunate some you know, not everything in the plastic bag stores made of trash We had to like build some sets and we had to you know, um Use paint and all you know like all kinds of stuff like that some of it is unavoidable. Um You know definitely like you know The puppet world it's hard with the foam and stuff I always like use old couch cushions for the foam instead of trying to about find it new or you know rating good wills and um There's great place in new york called materials for the arts where you can get like secondhand materials um that people donate um But yeah, I mean it's it's it's definitely a challenge and you know, I You know, like I said, we used some new materials to create this show we had to um, but it's also like I still felt like it was important. You know, it's like I should better to do something than not do something um But I you know, I maybe it is that thing where being limited by certain materials Will will will cause people to be more inspired perhaps, you know But yeah, I think that is it it can be a challenge because as artists we are often exposed to a lot of nasty things for sure Thank you. Thank you. That's a that's a good question say about the materials that the artists are actually using I remember yeah, it's styrofoam or polystyrene used to be You know, because it could manipulate it and melt it down I remember using acetone and polystyrene in art class and college. Yeah, I had a job uh When I was younger building parade floats and we were just like carving styrofoam and then coating it in bondo I know good I'm thinking to myself good thing there wasn't cameras back then because like someone would put you know Me a picture of me with styrofoam now. I'd be like But uh, yeah, I see what you mean about the the plastic. So yeah um, I I think what I like is that even through the materials that you're using you can make a statement You're using these free materials that are part of society, but You know, it doesn't it's also sending a message that this is the free. It's disposable But maybe we need to be thinking about something else. I I was listening to uh, um talk on from the plastic pollution coalition and they have a new campaign about Trying to replace plastic water bottles in films and movies and you know tv shows and Replacing the disposable ability of things and that just and I thought that that's great. You know, we need it on all levels Right. Yeah, I always think it's funny when you watch a movie and it's like in the future but not like that far like It'll be something that's just like a hundred years in the future of 50 and they'll have the same coffee cup lid or like just like they'll still be have like a Starbucks lid or something like But but the filmmakers had imagined this a whole detailed like moon mining situation that was happening, but they couldn't just imagine A different kind of cup Yeah Yeah, uh Well speaking kind of like different materials or anything just because we are talking about Plastics. I mean sasha, would you like to dress at all kind of like? You know people who are trying to solve single-use plastics with bio Um biodegradable materials. I know that's a little bit of a jump from puppet materials But it's also just how people are trying to dress materials in our culture to you I think like the word recycling Bioplastic now has so many meanings um, I'm thinking of how words like natural and non-toxic have no legally Binding meaning they can be used on labels and same with biodegradable and bioplastic and so It could either be a plant material that is Chemically reduced to its atoms and then you make something that is identical to what would have been made from fossil fuels And so the process of making it is exposing those workers to toxic chemicals And then for the rest of its life cycle, it's It's the equivalent of a fossil fuel plastic But they're saying it's fossil fuel free Because it's made from plants, but those plants in turn are part of industrial agriculture Which is super dependent on fossil fuels for Pesticide and fertilizer and all the farm equipment. So it's very complex. Um, we have some bioplastics like polylactic acid that are Novel kinds of plastics made from plants designed to degrade more rapidly, but I saw a study in Environmental science and technology journal that showed that some of those are more toxic than conventional fossil fuel based plastics and so we really need to Think critically about what we mean What are we making it from? What are the intermediaries? What will happen to it when we dispose of it? and What is this idea of, you know, using food When we waste so much food and so many people are hungry Using food to make packaging. That's unnecessary for someone who has too much Already, so there's lots of justice issues involved. It's not just a scientific question Yeah That's I know I know that's not necessarily Yeah, the answer. So I was wondering I don't know that much about the biodegradable aspect of that, but And but but speaking where things end up in the the future. I mean robin. What would be your Your hope for the plastic bag store. I mean where it would end up or You know, it's traveling now again to Yeah, we're gonna go to Austin. Yeah after Chicago will be in Austin in April and hopefully in the Bay Area in the fall and You know, my hope is that it continues to tour You know, I mean it would be great if it became irrelevant But until it does I hope it continues to to tour or to maybe sit down and find a long-term home somewhere Mm-hmm Well, I know there's I mean there's other and I not to put Blair on the spot, but he is in the chat But I know there's other um You know shows in the puppet fest right Blair that are addressing kind of our environmental impact Eat a timber and then there's Tied of foes piece. How important do you think it is to include these? type of shows in a puppet festival or an art forum Wow, well, you know, it's uh It's something as a as a is the leading the curation of the festival. It's something I'm really uh Putting front and center is is finding puppet artists who are grappling with content that's that's uh Very relevant to today and very addressing issues today and Allowing puppetry as a form as a as a is that the uniqueness of puppetry as a as a material performance practice to uh address these things in ways that other forms can't and uh, this is To me always so interesting because Robin in her plastic bag store pieces is uh is taking materiality like this thing that every puppeteer is is in in a in a constant dialogue with and the the relationship to how to uh actualize in the world their vision in a in a fabricated replica of of of the idea With some form of materiality in that once that happens It has its own autonomy from the human world and it's it becomes the unique thing that puppetry is that it's that it's it stands outside of us and but it but it's it looks like uh, it has a reflective mirror for us to see ourselves in and and uh, so uh, the kind of material that you use is is not irrelevant and uh, the materials you're actually working with and and touching like and Robin talks about actually maybe stop touching this stuff Um, this stuff to work with that I can completely relate to that, you know, um, at uh, but it's also uh, something that that has has meaning. Um, uh It has specific ramifications for the for the viewer and um, so I In the festival we have uh, also we have timber which is a piece that's premiering next weekend by root stock puppet theater Mark Blashford leads that and it's um, he's looking at deforestation in in north america through a revisioning of the paul bunion myth But mark is a puppet artist who Who's a woodcarver and he's all about taking wood and carving it and and so he's he's He's just killing trees to make puppets already, you know, it's already going down, right and uh, but at the same time there's You feel something different about about you you can feel the the quality of the wood in his performances You can you can feel the way the puppet moves. You can feel the way it moves across the stage the way it sounds against it's it's when it touches itself and um, that's um That that that's important for the for the piece at the same time. It's about the pieces about that, you know, and um, uh Uh, you know, for sure, there's the even the bread and puppet theaters work is as a company that works Ruraly and works close to the land and is uh, it sees um, theater as being essential as bread and uh, and that, you know, to to, uh Work as much as possible with Of the the materials that are readily available the recycled material of that whole idea in the same way that robin is Is scouring around to find the the usable former container that held the sausages Uh, so that she can put it into her That's just such a great little detail. I think that was actually how to Sausage in it. Um, and uh, is in the same way. Peter Schumann is is collecting bed sheets constantly So that then the guy is just painting large bed sheet banner banner paintings all the time He has tons of them and they appear in his shows and and that tradition is of using two-dimensional painting Uh in performance is a totally interesting one that goes back to the renaissance and in in european culture of it and but it's a You know, it's like you're in the presence of it. It's not a projection It's a large painting and so there's that that materiality is is significant in that way. So, um, uh, it starts to starts to communicate differently specifically like then that to have an image that's that that is You know rendered in this way and that in that, you know, it's you can feel the roughness of it In in breton public's case because of of how the materials have traveled and been used and reused and now they're being used in this context, you know, it's a it's a I don't know it With a little awareness of the audience you start to you start to see into That in a different way like an idea that I really like that's in robin's piece is the philosophers And you know observation the knowledge is virtue and as this really simple thing that he says and and the protagonist in the story is Uh, thinks oh, that sounds great. That's got a great ring to it And it's great and then to have that come back on the bus stop. I just really I really I admire how you wrapped things around and then I mean even Putting plastic inside the boxes is that that you collect that was all collected as well, right? I which really wasn't probably necessary. Well, why did you feel that that was important to put them in the freezer? Boxes and stuff. I mean, I love it. I was just I wanted it to be real You know, I you know, I knew people were going to pick them up and shake them Yeah, I yeah fishermen's catch was one of my favorites. Yeah So I I just I want to encourage everybody if they haven't gone yet just to see the show. I mean Um, you know, it's not just the store you want to see you want to see the actual film and the whole You know You know presentation is just it leaves you blown away And to have a part of the puppet fest is wonderful Um and Blair, thank you for you know, your perseverance in giving this festival to all of us and and to be able to have live performance and to And to see the excitement on people's space on opening night I mean, I have gotten so many texts. They're like send me your pictures. Send me this It's it really brought life to me and I know it's making so many people happy to be able to have a discussion like this and um if for anybody listening and Next weekend, there's two more symposiums and the festival Continues all the way to January 30th. The plastic bag store is at Wrigley building through January 30th And robin is there daily Or the shows several times and and sasha. Thank you so much for your commitment and Your depth of knowledge on the plastic You know problems and solutions that we have to offer I mean, I think if we have more people like this coming at it from so many directions There's there is there's hope for for the what we leave behind, right? So, thank you very much. Thank you Thank you all Thank you. Julie. Thank you. All right. See you at the festival. Okay All right All right, but we're still live. I see we're still recording