23/05/2022
The lives of plastic bag
In 1818, the British writer Mary Shelley wrote the book entitled “Frankenstein” which depicts the story of a monster that the character Victor Frankenstein brought to life, bringing together human parts extracted from various corpses. Seeing his creature alive, he became sick and sorry, and abandoned it. The result was tragic!
Plastic represents the monster that modern societies have brought to life by bringing together different materials such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt and crude oil through science. The monster is alive and default has taken several micro and macro transfigurations. One of those transfigurations is the plastic bag.
Nowadays, the plastic bag influences life sea, where thousands of tons of plastic are found; the plastic bag helps children carry books to school or make a ball or a kite to play with; the plastic bag goes with us to supermarkets, markets, shops, tents and stalls; the plastic bag influences politics and mobilizes groups in different societies. The plastic bag reminds us of our tenuous relationship with nature-all this means, as the subject of Anésio Manhiça exhibition suggests, that the plastic bag has lives.
The exhibition takes us to these multiple lives of plastic bag in our homes, neighbourhoods, the streets, drainage ditches, and cities in a very intimate way. The exhibition invites us to reflect on our relationship with the monster. If we cherish it, the monster becomes “reusable” and “recyclable” -it becomes socialized; if we abandon it, as much as Victor Frankenstein did, it turns wild and comes back to haunt us and the planet it will continue to live with for thousands of years!
Anselmo Matusse, PhD.
Translation Agência Moçambicana de Tradução e Interpretação
Anésio Manhiça Osvaldo Passirivo Mateus Nhamuche
