Blog

Plastic: Remaking our world part 2

10 May 2023
Back in June 2022, I wrote a blog post about the touring exhibition Plastic: Remaking our world. At the time the exhibition was on display at Vitra Design Museum. I was lucky enough to meet with one of the curators, Charlotte Hale, and visit the exhibition when it was on display at V&A Dundee...
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Reuse: Black plastics

3 May 2023
One of the cases in our current exhibition, Reuse , looks at the problems that black plastics have when it comes to the recycling system and therefore how the material is then reused. When products and packaging made of plastics enter the recycling system, they need to be separated into individual...
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Reuse: Local Recycling

26 April 2023
The collection of household plastics for recycling through the UK’s Local Authority bin collection service began exactly twenty years ago with the introduction of the 2003 Household Waste Recycling Act. Looking back, it now seems crazy that up until that point, we had all been throwing our plastics...
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60 years old, the Polyside Chair, Robin Day, 1963.

19 April 2023
In the late 1950s, furniture manufacturer Hille approached Robin Day with the idea of producing a one-piece chair shell to add to their range. Up to that point, there were a limited number of materials that could achieve such a design, such as pressed metal, structural ply or glass-reinforced...
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Reuse: Not Single Use

12 April 2023
Since the introduction of the first disposable hot drinks cups by American company DART in the mid 20th century, the consumer has become used to the concept of single-use. Dart Manufacturing Company was established in 1937 in Mason, Michigan, USA making plastic key cases, steel tape measures and ID...
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Curatorial talks

5 April 2023
As a museum curator of a small museum, I find that my work each week can be varied and extremely interesting. This last week has been full of working out budgets for the coming year, thinking about new acquisitions, updating object records, and thinking about our next exhibition. I have also been...
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L'il Abner's Flyin-Saucer, Fred Morrison, 1950.

29 March 2023
AIBDC : 008605 Image credit: MoDiP This bright and sunny, yellow coloured frisbee is in an amazing condition given that it is over 70 years old. That is largely due to the fact that it has been unused: 1600 of these Arcuate Vanes were discovered in a warehouse in 1977, where this example is believed...
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Our latest exhibition - Reuse.

15 March 2023
This week we have been busy taking down our last exhibition, Endurance , and installing our new exhibition, Reuse . We have been joined by one of our volunteers, MA Fine Art student Sourabh Sharma, seen in the images below emptying the cases and wrapping objects for their return to storage. Although...
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Endurance: out at sea

8 March 2023
This is the final blog post relating to our current exhibition, Endurance , which closes at the end of this week. Every year, an estimated 236,000 people drown, making drowning a major public health problem worldwide [1] . This figure includes in rivers, pools and at sea. The best way to prevent...
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