The Synthetic Collective is an interdisciplinary collaboration between visual artists, cultural workers and scientists. We work together to sample, map, understand, and visualize the complexities of plastics and micro-plastics pollution in the Great Lakes Region. Crucial to our research methodology is the driving principle that artists and scientists conduct research together, from the outset of the inquiry. As such, we hope to better connect scientific knowledge with potential cultural imports, and enrich artistic production with informed science. Our inquiry is at the intersections of plastics pollution, geologic processes, and artistic production. Our intent is to follow plastics through from production and consumption to disposal and disaggregation.
MEMBERS
Kelly Jazvac is an established Canadian artist and scholar. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University in Montréal. Her academic interests centre on visualizing the nature and accumulation of plastic waste in the environment.
Kirsty Robertson is Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Museums, Art and Sustainability, and Professor and Director of Museum and Curatorial Studies at Western University. She is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Curating which is an experimental lab that does research into waste, pollution, and climate crisis, and the development of low-waste/low-carbon exhibitions and artworks.
Kelly Wood is a senior Canadian artist and scholar specializing in photography. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University. Her research focuses on subjects that relate to the environmental impact of waste accumulation, waste economies, and all forms of visible and invisible pollution.
Dr. Patricia Corcoran is a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Western University. Her research focuses on natural and anthropogenic sedimentary deposits, including the distribution, accumulation, and degradation of plastic debris in sediment, water, and aquatic animals. She has played a role in developing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Great Lakes Marine Debris Action Plan, as well as Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Plastic Pollution Framework.
Heather Davis is an assistant professor of Culture and Media at The New School in New York whose work draws on feminist and queer theory to examine ecology, materiality, and contemporary art in the context of settler colonialism. Her most recent book, Plastic Matter (Duke University Press, 2022), explores the transformation of geology, media, and bodies in light of plastic’s saturation.
Tegan Moore a Canadian artist working in sculpture and installation to interrogate the built environment and its relationship with the body through granular, intuitive, and research-based investigations. Her practice embraces provisional and metabolic processes through the use of discarded material.
Sara Belontz is a post-doctoral researcher at California State University, San Marcos, developing a novel technique using NanoIR instrumentation to identify and classify nano- and microplastics in aqueous solutions. She received a PhD from Western University investigating the spatial and temporal distribution of microplastics in benthic sediments of Lake Huron.
Dr. Lorena Rios Mendoza is an Associate Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Natural Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Superior. Her expertise is in environmental chemistry pollution focusing on toxic compounds adsorbed onto microplastics.
Kathleen Hill is a geneticist with a research focus on DNA mutations. She is primarily interested in the forensics of mutagenesis i.e., finding evidence to solve unknown origins and mechanisms of mutations. Her research team studies mutations in the context of cancer, neurodegeneration, synthetic biology and environmental agents.
Ian Arturo is an earth scientist working for WSP USA in the NYC area, investigating contaminated Superfund sites. He graduated from Allegheny College, in Meadville, PA with a BS in environmental science and completed his MSc in Geology (Environment and Sustainability Collaborative) from the University of Western Ontario.