The event that I attended was that of Jessica Irish's talk on her film "This Mortal Plastik".
At the beginning of the event, we viewed Irish's film which was very thought-provoking, informative, and inspiring. The film was a deep dive into the topic of micro-plastics which have become a huge threat to our health in modern times. The film was inspiring to me because to me, it was amazing to see an artist and storyteller develop her own research and scientific viewpoints regarding this crucial matter. Further into the talk, Irish explained her thought process surrounding the film's beginnings and she explained to us that the name of the film was inspired by a line in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The screenshot that I captured of her quotation is very hard to see but it reads "Shuffle within this mortal plastic, a pause between deep time and no time." This quotation is inspiring to me, because again it shows that Irish is a storyteller, a writer, an artist and she has utilized her art to make something so scientifically relevant to the entire planet. Irish's talk was eye-opening in that she spoke about what we can do in order to save our lives. She spoke of big corporations, their huge impact on this crisis, and how we can make small changes to filter plastic out of our lives such as in tea bags, clothing tags, fruit snacks, etc. Moreover, Irish talked about policy changes that need to be made for our planet. I decided to research some of Irish's points about policy and found that on the This Mortal Plastik website there are listed 5 suggestions to take action. One suggestion on the website is to visit BeyondPlastics.org and fill out petitions that urge the breakaway from plastic pollution. Another suggestion is to urge our representatives to sign the United Nations treaty that urges countries to end plastic pollution and uses.
All in all, Jessica Irish's talk was one that I am grateful for attending. Irish's viewpoints and amazing storytelling backed by scientific research are captivating. One thing that I really took away from the event was that corporations can do more and should be doing more for our planet, the responsibility does not solely fall on the average citizen.
References
Jessicairish@mac.com. “Actions - This Mortal Plastik.” This Mortal Plastik - a Film by Jess Irish, 8 May 2022, http://thismortalplastik.com/actions/.
“Nations Sign up to End Global Scourge of Plastic Pollution | | UN News.” United Nations, United Nations, https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113142.
Tell Amazon: Stop Polluting Our Planet with Plastic A De, et al. “Take Action.” Beyond Plastics - Working To End Single-Use Plastic Pollution, https://www.beyondplastics.org/act.
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