Art projects

Plastic Food is a research and artistic creation project by Itzal García, an artist concerned about the alarming state of our planet, focusing on how this scenario influences our diet.

Currently, the widespread use of plastics in the food industry, textile industry, and everything that surrounds us has caused us to overlook the impact we have on our environment and how it affects us. Under the premise "we are what we eat," Itzal advocates for slow food over fast food to promote a healthy, sustainable society with values. She also criticizes the excessive consumption and use of packaging, the pollution caused by transportation, and their influence on environmental degradation. She goes a step further, raising awareness about how plastic has even entered the food we eat and the water we drink, a phenomenon she calls Plastic Food. We ingest microplastics in salt, beer, fruits, and even through the air we breathe. Every time we wash our synthetic garments, nanoplastics are released into the sea, ingested by fish, and ultimately enter our bodies. Of course, the role of women is always present in the project; women as transmitters of intergenerational culture and basic values for the conservation of the planet and humanity.

"Plastic Food" is a project as a process, as an experience, through the analysis of the context, aiming to produce a change in habits both in individuals and society. It materializes in mediations, actions, installations, photographs, sculptures, and videos. For the sculptures, Itzal uses recycled materials: from fruits (phloem and seeds) and from packaging or clothing. She also works with textile techniques. She treats photography and video as mere documentation of her performances and mediations, mixing them with her private life. She works transversally, with different societal agents where everyone contributes and complements: NGOs, platforms, scientific laboratories, fostering the creation of a hybrid and expanded work. To achieve this, Itzal acts as an agent of social transformation, focusing on our way of eating and raising awareness about the climate situation, in which our daily and unconscious actions have an impact.

www.itzalgarcia.com