Plastic Vanitas and Amani Vanitas: Plastic Vanitas, HTW Berlin, Germany, 27th October - 25 November 2016

Emerging from residencies at the Museum of Design in Plastics and Amani, an abandoned post colonial science research centre in Tanzania, the Vanitas works question what constitutes an archive and how responses to it might forge new connections, shedding light on our anthropological heritage, sustainability and our relationship to the environment.

This item contains a press release, an exhibition poster, 4 images of the Plastic Vanitas photoworks and an animated video of Neudecker's process of constructing them.

This item documents the exhibition of 40 of the photographic works from Neudecker's Plastic Vanitas series at the University of Applied Science in Berlin on 27th October until 25th November 2016. Plastic Vanitas is an installation of 49 photographic works developed in response to the plastics collection at the Design of Plastics Museum in Bournemouth during Neudecker's residency. Using a specific form of still life, developed in 16th and 17th century Flanders, the objects are re presented in the photographs as Vanitas paintings, acting as allegories for environmental threat and future sustainability.

As result of this exhibition Neudecker was invited to participate in the 2019 Plastics Heritage Conference in Lisbon, convened by Maria Elvira Callapez Callapez.

Plastics Heritage: History, Limits and Possibilities Congress, May 29-31 2019 at Museu da Famácia (Pharmacy Museum) in Lisbon, Portugal.
http://plasticsheritage2019.ciuhct.org/program/

Video courtesy of Arts University Bournemouth.

Photography courtesy of the University of Applied Science, Berlin. Used with permission.

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