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Jan Patience: V&A Dundee exhibition explores plastic… and why it’s no longer fantastic

Material shredded by the Precious Plastic project, as featured in V&A Dundee’s winter exhibition
Material shredded by the Precious Plastic project, as featured in V&A Dundee’s winter exhibition

It’s hard to imagine a world without plastic. And, as a new exhibition, Plastic: Remaking Our World, at V&A Dundee, reveals, the history of plastics is rich, varied and surprising.

A co-production from V&A Dundee, Germany’s Vitra Design Museum and the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, the exhibition charts the history of plastics, from natural materials known for plasticity to the invention of synthetic plastics.

From a silver and tortoiseshell knife and fork set made in the early eighteenth Century, to a three-ply polypropylene face-mask manufactured in 2022, objects on show set the history of plastic in context.

Functional and stylish design played a key role in both “natural” plastics and the development of synthetic plastics. Take Finnish designer Eero Aarnio’s classic Pallo/Ball chair from 1963 – on show in all its space-age glory.

I loved the Smoker’s Cabinet, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1916 for his last major commission at 78 Derngate, Northampton. The top and legs of the small ebonised wood cabinet are inlaid with bright-yellow Erinoid, a trade name for casein plastic, produced in Britain from 1912.

As the world re-evaluates its relationship with plastics amid environmental concern, the exhibition lays down a need for change at local and global levels.

There’s a local-meets-global spin in the Dundee iteration. The Beach In Plastic showcases the results of a project in which primary schools across Scotland took part in V&A Dundee’s Beach Plastic Challenge. On show is a 1960s Fairy Liquid bottle, found by Ladyloan Primary School, Arbroath.

Other elements in Dundee include the free-to-visit interactive Plastic Lab, which invites visitors to explore the promise and problems of plastic.

Plastic: Remaking Our World, V&A Dundee, until February 5


Glasgow’s Theatre Royal is playing host to an exhibition of work inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s 1819 novel The Bride Of Lammermoor, a tragic love story which in turn led Gaetano Donizetti to create his 1835 opera, Lucia di Lammermoor.

The exhibition, staged by Scottish Opera, has been created by a group of women from the Borders for a project called Sweet Sounds In Wild Places. You can find this sweet-sounding show in the Upper and Dress Circle foyers until Saturday.