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Workshops & seminars

Welcome to the Plasticocene

A one-day interactive exploration of plastic pollution, art & law


Date & time
Friday, May 30, 2025
10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Register now

Cost

This event is free.

Website

Where

J.W. McConnell Building
1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
4TH SPACE

Accessible location

Yes

Please join Oonagh Fitzgerald and colleagues for a one-day interactive and creative exploration of our fraught relationship with plastic waste.

This is an immersive opportunity to consider questions such as: How am I contributing to plastic pollution and how can I reduce consumption of plastic? Can international law contribute to eliminating plastic pollution and can plastic waste be a material resource for artmaking and performance?

The exploration includes discussions of international law to end plastic pollution, artmaking with plastic waste, showing examples of plastic waste arts assemblages and videos about transformative projects! There will be new music by Philon Nguyen about the draft treaty on plastic pollution as well as opportunities to construct with plastic waste!

Schedule  
10:00am  Expo Opens
10:30am - 12:30pm

The role of policy, practice, and law in addressing plastic pollution 

Melissa DeYoung, PMP, Vice President, Pollution Probe

Melissa Gorrie, Law Reform Manager, Ecojustice Canada

Alexandra R. Harrington, Lecturer in Law at Lancaster University Law School, Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law Agreement on Plastic Pollution Task Force

Faisal Shennib, doctoral researcher at the Centre for Creative Reuse

12:30pm - 1:30pm Break
1:30pm - 3:30pm

The role of the arts in addressing plastic pollution

Kelly Jazvac, Associate Professor, Studio Arts, Concordia University

Eldad Tsabary, Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies, Fine Arts, Concordia University

Josh Jensen and Joé Côté-Rancourt, Sustainability Curators, FOFA Gallery, Concordia University 

Maria Fitzgerald, science teacher & cartoonist

3:30pm - 6:00pm Expo Open Visit
6:00pm Expo Closes

How can you participate? Join us in person or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting watching live on YouTube.

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca

About

Oonagh Fitzgerald

Oonagh is an international lawyer, artist and performer who recently successfully defended her INDI PhD dissertation in Fine Arts, under the supervision of Professor Eldad Tsabary. Her artworks, artivism and written reflections on plastic pollution are part of her continuing exploration of transdisciplinary international law-arts research-creation (TILARC) practice. 


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