EVENT #2

JESSICA IRISH'S THE MORTAL PLASTIK

This past Thursday, I attended Jess Irish’s talk about her award-winning documentary, the Mortal Plastik. I really enjoyed this topic, her documentary, and the talk as a whole. All of the aspects of this hour long seminar were equally intriguing to me. 

one of the opening scenes in the Mortal Plastik

Jess Irish is a currently a professor at the New School in New York City, which is a part of Parsons. She is an “award-winning artist, designer and writer who makes lyrical nonfiction films and cross-genre media” (Faculty). She has created various documentaries, however the Mortal Plastik focused on the environmental harm that plastic is causing in our world today. 

Jess Irish while speaking about her documentary

a scene from the Mortal Plastik a toxic plant photo overlayed with all the chemicals used

The talk started out with the viewing of the documentary, and then transitioned into Irish talking about the backstory and origins of her creative piece. While I was watching her film, I was completely intrigued. Her film showed real documentary footage of different scenes such as the various chemical and plastic plants or footage of whales swimming the ocean, but also included drawings, animations, and mixed media overlays onto the real pictures. She also added in various narrating voices which added a nice change in speed — each voice felt like another person telling their points to the audience. After viewing her documentary, Irish spoke about her choice to create her film in a story telling manner — she believes that it sends her audience the message without talking numbers and statistics at them. I definitely believe her message of how humans are causing a horrifying change to our planet and her call for change was conveyed to us in a way where it did not feel like someone was talking at you. She chose to tell the story in a more personal way — she focused it around her daughter and her mother but then told the backstory of what plastic is, what it represents, and its history from what it began as and what it has evolved into. Additionally, her choice to include how whales have been involved in this plastic evolution served as another way to appeal to the audience and portray her message; she talked about how whales were once killed for energy oil, but are now being killed due to the toxins we are causing we plastic. 

one of the whale artistic overlays in the documentary used to represent what that whale was used for

This blog is not merely long enough to discuss how meaningful and amazing Irish’s documentary is. I truly enjoyed this talk, and definitely would recommend it to anyone. Irish (such as we’ve seen in lecture as many past artists have done) is using her artistic abilities and passions to create meaningful art. She is using her passion to tell our society how we are hurting our planet. I side with her and also believe our world needs to enact change, we are leaving a giant footprint on our planet.

Proof of Attendance:

Works Cited

“Faculty.” Jess Irish | Parsons School of Design, www.newschool.edu/parsons/faculty/Jess-Irish/.