Showcasing the humble plastic bag from its seductive, design-led beginnings to its wasteful, dangerous after-life, Plastic Garbage Guarding the Museum is at first a compelling, beautiful installation, whilst over time its thought-provoking power will heighten. Located outside the Swiss city of Winterthur’s Gewerbemuseum, Luzinterruptus – an “anonymous artistic group” from Madrid – collected over 5,000 plastic bags from locals (the museum ingeniously offering entrance tickets in exchange) for the installation that accompanies the Ida-Marie Corell and Susanna Kumschick curated exhibition, Oh, Plastiksack!.
Filling the bags with light and air, the collective also supplied helium-filled, illuminated bags to locals for the launch event; creating blissfully chaotic scenes that brought immersive art right out of the gallery. The legacy of the installation is that over the course of the exhibitions run, the art itself will gradually deflate, transforming from the vivid beauty of these images to a depressing, increasingly ugly attraction. There’s very little that convey a narrative as powerful as seeing it unfold right before your eyes. Compelling stuff…
Photography, Gustavo Sanabria
