Event Blog 2: Jess Irish







        Think of a bag of chips. You open up the bag, eat the chips and throw it away, but where is this away? “This Moral Plastik”, a film created by Jess Irish, talks about the global plastic problem and how a person never throws something “away” it just goes elsewhere. The plastic we “throw away” accumulates overtime into massive piles and gets into oceans and other parts of nature.The plastics created today will outlive all of us. 

        I feel like it’s easy to remove oneself from these global issues living in such a progressive area like Los Angeles. We are all guilty of it, myself included, I never think about these issues living in the bubble of UCLA, where the administration and student body are environmentally conscious. Today, while watching “This Moral Plastik”, I felt drawn back into the global plastic problem. This is a different perspective on plastics I have not seen before.






        Jess Irish created a documentary that compares and intertwines the use of plastics and whales. Whales have been hunted for years for their oil and meat, and plastics are becoming the “21st-century whale” with petroleum plastics. Plastics are made from synthetic materials and can take on many different forms being molded into many different items. 





        Jess Irish combines both art and science in her documentary. After viewing her documentary today, Irish spoke about different creative decisions she made one being how in her illustrations she made the plastics look as real as possible when compared to the human skin. She wanted to emphasize how our skin and bodies are temporary, but the plastics we use are forever. Her film was informative and eye-opening as we are almost past a point of no return. She uses her work to urge others on how this is not an easily solvable problem and will take everyone.





Works Cited

“Bag of Chips.” Google Images, 2022.


Bassetti, Francesco. “The future of plastics is uncertain.” Climate Foresight, Sept 2020, 

https://www.climateforesight.eu/global-policy/the-future-of-plastics-is-uncertain/ 


Hicks, Ben. “A turtle mistakes a plastic bag for food.” Oceanic Society, Feb 2022, 

https://www.oceanicsociety.org/resources/7-ways-to-reduce-ocean-plastic-pollution-today

/ 


Irish, Jess. “Person holding plastic.” Jess Irish, 2021, https://jessirish.com/this-mortal-plastik/. 


Irish, Jess. “This Moral Plastik.” Jess Irish, 2021, https://jessirish.com/this-mortal-plastik/. 


Jackson, Gordon. "whaling". Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Mar. 2019, 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/whaling. 


Johnson, Chris. “Whales and the plastic problem.” World Wild Life, 18 Feb 2021, 

https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/whales-and-the-plastics-problem. 


Ronan, Megan. “Jess Irish Zoom.”, 2022.


“What is Plastic Anyway.” EcoEnclose, 17 Sept 2019, 


        https://www.ecoenclose.com/blog/what-is-plastic-anyway/.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 7: Neuroscience & Art

Image
             As a psychology major, this week’s topic of neuroscience and art was particularly interesting as the lectures and videos covering topics discussed in my psychology classes. In my psychology class last quarter, we learned about the different animals and organisms that humans share genes with. We share about 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, and about 60% with bananas, and during this week’s lecture, we learned that humans share 70% of our genes with sea sponges.            A researcher at University of California, Santa Barbara found that sea sponges have synapses, a very important part of the nervous system. Synapses are the cross section between nerve cells that allow these cells to pass information to eachother (Yong). Though sea sponges are immoble and almost lifeless, they can help neuroscientists understand the nervous system within humans and other organisms and its origins.    ...
Read more