Manifest Gallery - PLASTIC International Call

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works featuring plastic as subject matter, are primarily made from any type of plastic, or are about its heavy presence in our lives.

It is difficult to think of a medium that is as useful as plastic while also being so fraught.

Plastic is a modern material. It lacks the gravitas of stone and oils, but it makes so much more possible. Plastics are lightweight. Acrylics are water-soluble. Pragmatically, they are affordable. Aesthetically they are brilliant, moldable, stretchable. They can be, engraved cut, shaped by the artist who also knows that plastic is haunting their water, their soil and air, their bloodstream.

Nearly everything we use is made from plastic. Acrylic. Nylon. Polymer clay. Rayon. Silicone. Polycarbonate. Vinyl. Teflon. PVC. Celluloid. We build things we truly need with them, and many things we want. We mass-produce plastic. It can be beautiful. And it is useful. And it leaches.

ANNUAL CASH AWARD: The annual Manifest Grand Jury Prize will result in the awarding of one significant cash prize ($5000) to a single work selected as the ‘best of the entire season’.