Siara Mencia
The Price of Convenience, recycled parchment paper, pigment, resin, 120 x 144 x 96", 2020
Parchment paper was once considered a throw-away material, discerned as trash. Through material evolution, it has become an extravagant material with many uses. Single-use plastic bags have become an everyday material with an indisputable contaminative effect on our environment. Accordingly, society's dependency on plastics must change. Alluding to the shifting of social norms, Siara transforms parchment paper into single-use plastic bags, creating an ironic association between these materials.
About the Artist
Siara Mencia is a 32-year old woman of color and a native of East Harlem, NYC. She is motivated by the belief that art can activate new relationships between it’s viewers, form communities, and challenge social conventions.
Call to Action
This work highlights the correlation between material development, disposal, and the influence society has on materials. Capitalism has created the extensive demand on the environment, the amplified consumption of materials, and created an immeasurable amount of waste. This piece serves as visual commentary on our dependency on single-use plastics through the connivance of the capitalist system we struggle against. I want you to feel uncomfortable with your perception of these common items and to help shift our patterns of behaviors.
We are social animals. We rely on each other for survival and our environment is essential to our survival. Climate change is not solely based on recycling. It is multilayered and affects all aspects of our lives. Capitalist propaganda blames the climate crisis on the masses when in fact it is a systematic pitfall. Through our collective awareness, pushback, and allocation of resources, the corrupt capitalist system can be held accountable.
In Their Own Words