Single-Use Plastic
Visual Response
Olivia Guterson
At Our Table
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART DETROIT
Reboot
March 25-April 4
“At Our Table” is a reimagining of a Passover table constructed from locally sourced, discarded single-use plastics, illuminating the concept of convenience, throwaway culture, and environmental responsibility during a holiday centered on the joy and the sacrifices necessary in finding our own personal liberation.
Every Passover, Jews around the world give up leavened bread – hametz. It’s a sacrifice they make willingly to recall their ancestors’ journey from slavery to freedom. But this year, Reboot and Jonathan Bines, a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! have created Plastover, asking Jews to make another kind of sacrifice – choosing to mindfully free ourselves from the plague of plastic waste by committing to eliminate the use of single-use plastic for the eight days of Passover. The goal is to add something more contemporary and directly meaningful into the holiday and have an immediate impact on the world. At Our Table, is a key piece of Plastover. Learn more about Plastover here.
Olivia Guterson
Olivia Guterson is an interdisciplinary artist, born in Gallup, New Mexico, based in Detroit. She is deeply influenced by the textures, landscapes, and patterns of her upbringing in the Southwest, as well as her Jewish and African heritage. She works predominantly in black and white for its stability, intensity, and honesty while incorporating ancestral patterns and narratives. Olivia studied at the Evergreen State College, Washington State. In 2020, she curated her first exhibition, “The Space Between” at the Ann Arbor Art Center. She presently is a resident at Sibyls Shrine and AS220’s Practice//Practice. Private and public collections where her works can be found include: Detroit Art Collection, Library Street Collective, Shinola Hotel, and ROI in Jerusalem. Her work has been shown at the Arab American National Museum, Art Week Miami, JADA Art Fair, Norwest Gallery, Detroit Artist Market, Ann Arbor Art Center, and more.
Written Response
Response to “At Our Table”
Sarah Blake
Sarah Blake will respond through a piece of creative nonfiction, exploring plastics, the environment, family, the passing of time, Jewish identity, and specifically the Passover holiday.
For the full written response, please see “Over Time”.
Sarah Blake‘s debut novel “Naamah” is a retelling of Noah’s Ark from the perspective of Noah’s wife (Riverhead Books). Joan Silber called it “[A] wild and superbly intelligent reimagining” in The New York Times. A starred Kirkus Review dubbed it “A poetic debut of biblical proportions,” and it was praised by O, The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly, among others. It won the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction and the Bisexual Book Award for Fiction. Blake is also the author of two collections of poetry: “Let’s Not Live on Earth,” featuring the epic poem “The Starship”; and “Mr. West,” an unauthorized lyric biography of Kanye West (Wesleyan University Press). An illustrated workbook of prompts and activities accompanies her chapbook “Named After Death” (Banango Editions). Her poems and short stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Catapult, The Kenyon Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and holds her MFA from The Pennsylvania State University and MA from The University of Texas at Austin. She currently lives in the United Kingdom under the Global Talent route, but she has lived most of her life in the Philadelphia area. Her second novel “Clean Air” is coming out with Algonquin Books on February 8, 2022.
