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 an Associate Professor of visual culture and contemporary art at Western University. Her work on petro-textiles, that is, textiles made from petroleum products (among them microplastics), contemporary artists using plastics, and art-as-activism underlies her contribution to the project.
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 a researcher, writer, and editor from Montréal. She is an assistant professor of Culture and Media at Eugene Lang College, The New School, in New York. Her current book project “Plastic Matter” traces the ethology of plastic and its links to petrocapitalism.
Tegan Moore is an artist working in sculpture and installation based in Montréal. She has a practice of salvage and re-use in which she examines the complexities of materials related to the built environment. Through her granular, experimental, and research-based studio practice, she resurfaces peripheral matter and infrastructures.
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, who investigate 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.