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| "Before Plastics" objects on display
in the Plastics Unwrapped exhibit
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The Burke Museum’s new exhibit, Plastics Unwrapped, examines how plastics went from being rare to being everywhere in a short period of time, and how material culture was changed by plastics.
To help visitors explore what life was like before plastics, several objects from the Burke’s ethnology collections – made from a range of materials found in nature – are on display. These objects include: a rain hat made of twined cedar bark, a child’s waterproof parka made of seal gut, toy blocks made of wood, and containers made of clay.
That made me wonder, will more and more plastic objects begin to make their way into the Burke Museum’s permanent collections as a reflection of this shift in material culture?
I asked Rebecca Andrews, ethnology collections manager, and she pointed me towards several objects in the ethnology collection that are either partially or fully comprised of plastic. For example:
