Plastics in our Collections: A Sign of the Changing Material Culture?

"Before Plastics" objects on display

in the Plastics Unwrapped exhibit

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:

Unearthing a Fossil: Giant Turtle Edition

We're often asked what it takes to get a fossil out of the ground and ready for research and museum display. The answer: it can take weeks, months or even years worth of work.

In this short time-lapse video, Burke Museum fossil preparator Bruce Crowley walks us through the process with our giant turtle fossil—from digging it out of the ground and wrapping it in a jacket, to chipping away tiny bits of rock with a series of miniature jack hammers.