Cookbook for When the Sun Goes Out features a living sculpture, called a “plastomach” that actually eats plastic debris via living fungi. Based on research from the John Dighton Lab at Rutgers University, white rot fungi has the capability to digest plastic. In addition to considering the extraordinary capabilities of this life-form, the works in this series consider a possible future climate scenario in which rainforests on the warming Earth dry-up and burn. Blacking out the sky, the smoke from these emergent fires may herald the next ice age. Focusing on non-heliocentric energy sources, such as plastic debris, the artworks in Cookbook consider what us human may do, and what we may eat, when the sun goes out.
Artworks that are part of Cookbook for When the Sun Goes Out series are currently on view at the Chrysler Herbarium at Rutgers University, US through September, at d’Expression in Marnay-sur -Seine, FR and at Zone2Sorce in Amsterdam, NL through November 8th, 2024. For more info on the exhibition at Zone2Source please check out https://zone2source.net/tentoonstelling/cookbook-for-when-the-sun-goes-out/Links to an external site. and come to the live lecture “How to Feed Your Plastomach” either in person or on Instagram Live at 10:00 AM EST, on August 8th @elizdemaray: https://zone2source.net/event/how-to-feed-your-plastomach/Links to an external site.
Pictured below is the plastomach installation at d’Expression and a series of plastic/fungi compositions currently on view at the Chrysler Herbarium.
elizabethdemaray 