A collaborative event convened by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and V&A Dundee.

Bringing together thinking from our latest exhibition, [Plastic: Remaking our World](https://www.vam.ac.uk/dundee/exhibitions/plastic)</u> and the Paul Mellon Centre's multi-year project, Climate & Colonialism, this symposium explores the complex past, problematic present and possible futures of plastic.

Following a private viewing of the exhibition, participants will join international researchers, designers, artists, and activists in a series of discussions and presentations exploring the interconnections between plastics, climate, and colonialism.

The symposium will ask:
Where did plastic come from?
How do we understand its colonial histories?
How are art, craft and design practices implicated in these extractive processes, and how do they challenge them?
What is the ongoing impact of climate injustice and the unequal impact of global waste streams on people and the planet?
Is there a future post-plastic?
What role do artists, designers and environmental humanities researchers play in creating such futures?Synthetic Histories: Plastics, Climate, and Colonialism is convened by Sria Chatterjee, (Paul Mellon Centre); Nichol Keene (V&A Dundee), Charlotte Hale (V&A Dundee), and Laurie Bassam. Speakers:

Heather Davis, Assistant Professor of Culture and Media, The New School, New York
Nanjala Nyabola, writer, political analyst, and activist.
Max Liboiron, Associate Professor in Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland and founder of CLEAR, an interdisciplinary plastic pollution laboratory (online presentation).
Alia Farid, Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican artist
More speakers will be announced soon.

Image: Vitra Design Museum