Roksana Filipowska will present a talk on her essay commissioned for our current exhibition, “Rematerializing Care: Plastic and Plasticity in the work of Shari Mendelson.” In her essay, Filipowska writes that Shari Mendelson transforms single-use plastic containers into objects that inspire care. Whereas plastic containers signify almost nothing, Mendelson draws on the imagery of animal-shaped vessels from antiquity, which remain full of meaning even when empty. Drawing on her studio visit with Mendelson, Filipowska traces the way that Mendelson activates the plasticity of throwaway plastic and the uncomfortable overlaps between climate change and contemporary museum practice. Attendees will have access to Filipowska’s essay in advance. This program will be held in the Zoom webinar format, and viewers will have the opportunity to submit questions and comments. To read Roksana Filipowska’s essay please click here.

Roksana Filipowska, Ph.D., is a researcher, writer, and educator interested in the intersections of art and science. She is the Wurtele Study Center Programs and Outreach Manager at the Yale University Art Gallery and has completed her Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Pennsylvania. Her publications include “Ree Morton’s Celastic Turn” in Ree Morton (2019); “In Simulcast: Archigram and Radio Piracy in 1960s Britain” in Radio as Art: Concepts, Spaces, Practices (Verlag, 2019); “In Defiance of Propaganda: Photographic Failure as Shared Ground” in Too Good to be Photographed (Lugemik Press, 2017); and “Richard Hamilton’s Plastic Problem” in Distillations Magazine (2016). Filipowska’s book project, Take Great Care: Global Plastic and the Movement of Plasticity, examines the impact of plastic materials on art making, conservation, and theory since the 1960s and formulates plasticity as a mode of resistance against such hegemonic operations as sameness and scalability.