APRIL 2024
HOW DO WE MAKE PUBLIC ART IN A CLIMATE CRISIS? CBC ARTS, April 10, 2024, by Chris Hampton
MARCH 2024
The Synthetic Collective and The Centre for Sustainable Curating are residents at LUMA Arles as part of the sustainable institution, a collaboaration with E-WERK Luckenwalde and Rupert, an interdisciplinary artist residency programme, specifically focused on institutional sustainability, co-funded by The European Union. The programme is a call to action to innovate new sustainable approaches and stimulate human, economic and ecological change to the cultural landscape.
Kirsty Robertson will participate in the panel Ctrl+Shift: Sustainable Solutions to Signage and Beyond at Interaccess, Toronto, with Charlene Lau and Suzanne Carte, moderated by Jasmine Sihra.
We wrote a guest post for the Gallery Climate Coalition on some recent projects: Tools for reducing plastic waste and other environmental impacts of art and exhibition making
OCTOBER 2023
A PUBLIC (ART) NOTICE, a free poster and downloadable guide to promoting more environmentally conscious ways to curate, create, and produce public art, launches at The Institute for Public Art and Sustainability at Evergreen Brickworks on October 16th.
MAY 2023
Synthetic Collective and Centre for Sustainable Curating are in residence at Evergreen Brickworks and The Bentway (Toronto) researching sustainable public art.
JANUARY 2023
Heather Davis is a speaker at the conference Synthetic Histories: Plastics, Climate, and Colonialism, at V&A Dundee
NOVEMBER 2022
Plastic Heart: Surface All the Way Through opens at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, November 15th, 2022.
SEPTEMBER 2022
Kelly Jazvac gives a talk at L’emprimerie centre d”artistes and Fondation Grantham
OCTOBER 2022
Les climats intérieurs et extérieurs : faire face à l’urgence climatique dans les musées by Kirsty Robertson, in Vie des Arts
JUNE 2022
Sara Belontz published Factors driving the spatial distribution of microplastics in nearshore and offshore sediment of Lake Huron, North America in Marine Pollution Bulletin
MARCH 2022
Ian Arturo published Categorization of plastic debris on sixty-six beaches of the Laurentian Great Lakes, North America in Environmental Research. This research contributed to the Canada Science Assessment of Plastic Pollution towards banning single use plastics.
Heather Davis was a panel speaker for MoMa’s event Material Worlds: Plastic. Programmed by The Ambasz Institute.
FEBRUARY 2022
Patricia Corcoran presented the dangers of plastic debris in the natural environment as well as its effects on animals in a sustainability and conservation panel hosted by the Western Wildlife Conservation Society.
JANUARY 2022
Synthetic Collective featured in Winter 2022 Esse Magazine on “Collectives” Portfolio feature by Noemie Fortin.
NOVEMBER 2021
Patricia Corcoran explains the dangers of microplastic pollution and what we can do about it in this Western University Trailblazer Thursday talk in the theme of Saving the Planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D_i4XcN__M
OCTOBER 2021
Shifting Material Culture panel discussion as part of Lan Tuazon’s solo exhibition Future Fossils: SUM at the Hyde Park Art Centre (Chicago). Tegan Moore is in a panel discussion on waste diversion and creative practice towards a circular economy.
Plastic Heart: Surface All the Way Through featured on CBC TV’s The National on October 2nd 2021 in a story about industrial plastic pellets in the Great Lakes.
SEPTEMBER 2021
Plastic Heart: Surface All the Way Through featured in CBC Science article: “Industrial plastic is spilling into the Great Lakes and no one is regulating it, experts warn”
JULY 2021
The Synthetic Collective will be a guest lecturer at the Banff Centre Thematic Residency Plastic, a virtual program led by Heather Davis and Lan Tuazon.
ON SUSTAINABLE SUBSTANCE, July 09, 2021. The Collective will present at ART/SWITCH an Amsterdam and New York based organization bringing together a global community of museum professionals, academics, art professionals and artists with the aim to connect discussions, promote existing knowledge and pave the way for sustainable solutions in the arts.
JUNE 2021
Christina Battle is featured in The Hoosac Institute’s June 2021 Journal with an online project informed by Battle’s experience sampling for plastics pollution on the shores of the Great Lakes with the Synthetic Collective in 2018.
MAY 2021
Kelly Jazvac and Patricia Corcoran discuss the global problem of plastics pollution and their collaborative work in a video for the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), including introducing the plastiglomerate as a geologic specimen and working together as part of the Synthetic Collective.
The Synthetic Collective participates in the symposium launch of the Centre for Sustainable Curating, jointly launching our DIY Fieldguide for Reducing the Environmental Impact of Art Exhibitions.
APRIL 2021
Christina Battle’s THE COMMUNITY IS NOT A HAPHAZARD COLLECTION OF INDIVIDUALS launches for the exhibition Plastic Heart: Surface All the Way Through at The Art Museum at the University of Toronto. Battle’s project is a participatory project that considers the ways that plants help us to remediate land impacted by the petrochemical industry while also wondering how we might support them in return.
JANUARY 2021
FIERMAN presents They forgot they were a landscape, a solo exhibition by Canadian artist Kelly Jazvac. It is the artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, and occurs concurrently with her inclusion in the exhibition Broken Nature at MoMA.
DECEMBER 2020
Patricia Corcoran, Johanna de Haan Ward, Ian Arturo, Sara Belontz, Tegan Moore, Carolyn Hill-Svehla, Kirsty Robertson, Kelly Wood, Kelly Jazvac publish A comprehensive investigation of industrial plastic pellets on beaches across the Laurentian Great Lakes and the factors governing their distribution. In the journal SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT, VOLUME 747.
MAY 2019
Synthetic Collective Article, “Embracing an interdisciplinary approach to plastics pollution awareness and action” The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Issue 04: Shoring, May 2019.The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is a serial broadsheet publication produced by the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga, as part of The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea.
FEBRUARY 2018
BOOK LAUNCH: Kelly Jazvac, PLASTIGLOMERATES, February 3, 2018. Plastiglomerates considers how artist Kelly Jazvac’s sculptural practice is situated amongst her collaborative research in diverse fields: earth sciences, environmental activism, and cultural studies. The book features an interview between Jazvac and geologist Patricia Corcoran; essays by Jonathan Griffin and Kirsty Robertson; and new images by Kelly Wood. Plastiglomerates launched in Canada at Art Metropole, Toronto, along with a window exhibition “Big Asks” by Jazvac and Durable Good. Kelly Jazvac and Kirsty Robertson in conversation with Petrina Ng and Rachel Wallace of Durable Good Publishing