The relational space collage: sea PET scenario and participatory plastic waste workshop bricolage

This exploratory paper forms a relational space brought together by a trans-disciplinary collage on disposable culture, plastic waste aesthetics, theoretical ideas, and graphic design through synergising both authors’ perspectives. These merge ad hock participatory working with plastic waste (Dimitrijevic, 2019; 2020; 2023) and working with waste through collage (Harland & dos Santos, 2014; Harland, 2016). For clarity, the paper visually draws on research praxis KraalD, the abbreviation for KraalDesignedisposal. In this paper, we utilise collage as an approach and useful visual metaphor for imagining the sea pollution scenario visualised in the gallery space suspended as a collage of graphic imagery and objects. The climate fiction (cli-fi) future ‘Sea PET 2150 Scenario’ (Dimitrijevic, 2023) metaphorically visualises plastic pollution futures in times of planetary uncertainty. For clarity, Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is a tough thermoplastic plastic polymer resin used mainly in manufacturing plastic containers and bottles. The multi-species scenario is the backdrop to two jellyfish-bloom Sea PET family workshops held in July 2022 at The Turner Contemporary Margate gallery (KraalD, 2022). The Sea PET family workshops’ interactive exposition explored the 21st-century gallery space ad-hoc use for, i.e., imagining the oceanic ‘living landfill’ (Dimitrijevic, 2019) and unpacked relational space for co-designing and visualising plastic pollution with single-use plastic waste to reflectively explore ‘graphic design as a spatial practice’ (Harland, 2016: 25). Conclusively the paper further draws on and discusses the two authors’ relational spaces of possibilities. Exploring the relationship between disposable culture, graphic design, gallery and visualising plastic pollution with plastic waste.