THE TOXIC REEF

Inspired by the example of our Australian contributor Helle Jorgensen, we at the IFF have taken up crocheting plastic bags and other synthetic stuff. The IFF Crochet Reef includes a very large sub- reef of yarn and plastic forms, known fondly as "The Toxic Reef," aka Bikini Atoll. Since we began this megalithic construction we have discovered a startling variety of plastic strings and ribbons, all of which can readily be crocheted. We have also started experimenting with cutting up old shower curtains and plastic fabric originally destined for tablecloths and sofa covers. Christine has become the Institute’s resident plastic princess and has been ferreting out products in the local stores of Echo Park and Highland Park. Once you start looking it’s amazing how many synthetic, string-like, petroleum-based products are out there. Way too many really. The Toxic Reef is the only one of the IFF sub-reefs that will be allowed to grow infinitely, and we especially invite would-be contributors to start experimenting with plastic. Check out the photo below of some do-dads we found at our local Michaels – this could be a colony of anemones right off the bat.

Like Helle, however, our main aim here is to recycle our actual trash. Christine has been crocheting models from plastic bags and string and weaving into them clusters of our used plastic bottles, cut-up bits of our discarded pill packages, old biros, and any other plastic geep-gaws that wind up in our waste bin. Once you start in on this there’s no end to what you can do with your trash. Though – truly - the most productive thing would be to not generate so much of it in the first place. Do we really need entire supermarket isles devoted to endless variations of plastic wrapping and throw-away curlicued crap? How about using a nice piece of string next time you give a gift?

Each year Americans now use 380 billion plastic shopping bags. That’s three and a half plastic bags per person per day. Every day! It is estimated that only 5% of these get recycled. Many of them end up in the sea where turtles and albatross and other marine creatures mistake them for jelly fish. The plastic shopping bag is not an existential necessity. Paper - and better still reusable canvas bags - offer an easily available alternative. Another prime object for reconsideration is the plastic water bottle. Every hour Americans use and discard 2.5 million of these. That’s 22 billion bottles a year. Remember when water came out of a tap? And there are still two billion people on planet earth for whom that remains a distant dream. Safety is often cited as a primary reason to buy bottled, but, in truth, city water is far better monitored for toxins and bacterial infestations than the vast commercial water industry. Water is the most basic substance of life: there are organisms that can live without oxygen, but no organism has ever been sighted that can live without water. Water is living creatures’ birthright and no product so represents the triumph of marketing than a bottle of this primordial liquid. Next they will be selling us air. When next you find yourself reaching for a “smart water” think about this: plastic is a petroleum-based product that never biodegrades - the trace of that drink will remain in the geological record of our planet for millions of years.

By highlighting plastic waste and recycling it into an “art work” we at the IFF hope to focus attention on the tsunami of plastic that is engulfing our world. What we hope to create here is not primarily an aesthetic experience but a transformation in behavior – beginning with our own. We have committed to keeping an entire year’s worth of our plastic trash as an experiment - we started in January 2007 and will carry through the end of December. How much plastic do WE use? Where does it come from? What are its sources? How does it creep into our lives, even when we are trying to avoid it? (See previous entry for photo of our first month’s trash.)  There really is nothing like living with a midden of your own plastic junk to force a rethink of deeply ingrained, and all too often unconscious habits of consumption.

We encourage everyone to try their own experiment – keep your plastic for a month, or even a week – it’s staggering how hard it is to avoid the stuff.

Kurt Vonnegut rightly opined that the power of the art as a weapon against the tyranny of the state was roughly equivalent to a custard pie being dropped from the top of a six foot high ladder. We at the IFF concur with this and would similarly estimate the power of art as a weapon against the commercial industrial complex. But for Vonnegut, none of this was an excuse for political inaction. He seemed to think that on a global scale if enough pies were dropped there would eventually be enough custard on the floor that anyone who tried to pick up a gun and shoot would fall down and break a leg. Art is indeed a custard pie. Yet its power lies in the potential to engage us all - not just a special select few - in personal activities that collectively add up, one pie at a time, to a transformative sea of change.

For Kurt’s views on art we are indebted to the article “Vonnegut’s Pies” by Dwayne Booth in the LA Weekly.