Disposability Disrupted
November 15, 2022 — May 28, 2023
Bakehouse Art Complex (Miami, FL)
Drawing from her interest in both the formal properties and ecological implications of polystyrene or plastic #6—commonly referred to by the brand name Styrofoam—Gabriela García D’Alta presents the site-specific and participatory installation, Disposability Disrupted. Trained as both an architect and photographer, García D’Alta collects and documents quotidian objects to prompt further exploration into their materiality and function. Spanning various mediums, Disposability Disrupted demonstrates her long-running fascination with the aesthetic qualities of waste, while simultaneously reflecting on its calamitous anthropogenic impact.
Disposability Disrupted is a detailed inventory that illustrates, through quantity and repetition, the sheer amount of polystyrene that is manufactured, used, and ultimately thrown away. García D’Alta visually mimics the scale of this problem by creating a photographic and sculptural index of individual pieces. The resulting installation invites the viewer to reconcile the problematic reality of manufactured wastefulness with the inherent beauty of readily-discarded material, elevating it to the status of art object. For García this is a call to action: reconsider not only of what we discard but more fundamentally what we value.
