UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance presents for free the world premiere of Plastic Bag Store: The Film on Thursday, April 22, 2021, at 7pm PT. This performance will be free to enjoy on CAP UCLA.
Created by award-winning Brooklyn-based artist, puppet designer and director Robin Frohardt, The Plastic Bag Store was conceived as an immersive installation and puppet-theater piece designed to take place in a storefront retail space. Yucky Shards cereal, Bagorade sports drink, Fabags deodorizers boasting “that fresh bag scent”, rotisserie chickens, cupcakes and sushi are among the thousands of hand-sculpted items—all made from discarded plastic bags. The store was scheduled to open in March 2020 to coincide with New York’s plastic bag ban but was postponed due to the city’s COVID-19 lockdown. For L.A. audiences, Frohardt and her team will reimagine a visit to The Plastic Bag Store through a new film commissioned by CAP UCLA.
Frohardt states that it’s “a visually rich and humorous experience that hopefully encourages a different way of thinking about the foreverness of plastic, the permanence of the disposable and that there is no “away” when we throw something out. There is great humor to be found in the pitfalls of capitalism—humor and satire can be powerful tools for social criticism especially with issues that feel too sad and overwhelming to confront directly.”
Plastic Bag Store: The Film transforms the installation into a dynamic series of stories that traverse ancient history, the present day and a future dystopia. The Plastic Bag Store employs inventive puppetry, humor and craft to explore how the hordes of plastic waste might be misinterpreted by future generations.
