Posted by By Staff Writer, Nev Wightman
Do you ever wonder how much plastic a school can use? Well, through a captivating art project, we all can learn. On Friday, May 16th, Diedra Krieger, an artist and curator, was invited to New Paltz High School by Mrs Schneck, our school’s Assistant Principal, to bring the Plastic Fantastic project to our community. Numerous bottles were collected by students to make a dome out of a metal frame and plastic water bottles.
Since 2008, Krieger has been invited by other schools after seeing her art, like Salisbury University, to bring Plastic Fantastic into their own communities.
“I’ve always wanted to create immersive environments that were like escapes from everyday,” says Krieger.
The final product of the dome is for people to create change through fun, play, and the overall development of the project. Since it is made from post-consumed water bottles, it creates an environment for the community to get together and to further relationships with one another through an extraordinary and creative work of art.
While Krieger was at Vermont College of Fine Art she earned her Masters in Fine Art, and learned about the original geodesic dome created by Buckminster Fuller, an architect, designer, and inventor in the 1960s and 1970s. What stuck out to Krieger about it was how the dome creates a “space of belonging.” After learning about this, Krieger built new ideas off the dome and added plastic bottles.
“Why were there so many water bottles? Is it about recycling? Should I recycle? Should I not use so many bottles?”
Diedra Krieger, speaking on the goals for her project
“The only question was like, how do I do that without adding more waste to the world?” Kreiger says.
After living in Australia and working with Oxfam, an international non-government agency who works with communities in poverty by providing clean water, newly built wells and emergency relief, the question of why people in the U.S were drinking out of water bottles was brought to her attention.
“When I came back it felt like everyone was drinking from water bottles and I didn’t understand why. I thought our tap water was fine,” says Krieger.
Since seeing what the Oxfam organization has done with helping and building communities, Krieger wanted to do something similar. Between the original geodesic dome and Oxfam, Krieger thought of making it her own by putting her plastic bottle spin on it, having it locally for people to see, and building community around her.
After each community sees the completed dome, inevitable questions are asked – “Why were there so many water bottles? Is it about recycling? Should I recycle? Should I not use so many bottles?”
Kreiger hopes that the viewers ask these questions so they know about the amount of single use plastic the world uses. Besides expressing herself through her artwork, Krieger is also demonstrating this wastefulness, whether it was the intention of the art or not.
Even though Krieger contributes significantly with Plastic fantastic, it isn’t the only work she does. Krieger has worked with other partners to create a project using robotics to show plastics autonomy, called Not So Microplastic, and has done multiple other projects. While the environmental factors are important for Krieger, the breaking away from reality is also a very important part of her art.
As Twyla Tharp says, “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”
The Maroon 