Performing Plastic Monsters Embodied Ecoactivism for COP26 in Scotland, Kenya, and Bangladesh

This in person presentation details the Plastic Monsters project, a three-part performance that took place in November 2021 during and around the UN COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK; the informal settlement Mukuru, Nairobi, Kenya; and Sylhet City, Bangladesh. Teams of scientists, policy experts, artists, community organisations, and scholars based in the UK, Kenya, and Bangladesh collaborated to create a triplet of living sculptures out of discarded single- and multi-use plastics. These plastic monsters alternately roamed the streets of Mukuru, performed for local audiences in Sylhet City, and crashed corporate exhibition booths behind the security compound at the public-facing ‘Green Zone’ at COP26.

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, aka COP26, was held in Glasgow over two weeks in November. Almost 200 countries participated in delegate talks and negotiations. The UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2020 recognises the importance of stakeholder engagement for successful development and implementation of adaptation and resilience options; accessing social capital, local expertise and indigenous knowledge systems have a critical role to play. Yet the COP26 gathering was a very regulated affair; even the public-facing Green Zone had a military-style security perimeter, and entrants were made to go through a security process similar to that of entering an airport.

Community-based participatory research engages stakeholders as equal partners in the research process, and aims to ensure that the research empowers and benefits the community. We have found that arts-based methods are highly relevant for participatory research, help to flatten research hierarchies and can reveal unanticipated findings. Furthermore, performance-based research and sensitisation tools target large audiences and a broad range of stakeholders, including groups that are often difficult to reach, and artistic practice can be used to stimulate debate and gather data using socially and culturally relevant means.

In this reflective practitioner presentation we discuss the motivations, aims, and execution of this project, which brought together academics, activists, community-based and social development organisations, artists, musicians, and filmmakers to engage directly with the everyday challenges of pollution from single-use plastics. We will present documentary footage to detail the three distinct sites of engagement (COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland; the community of Mukuru in Nairobi, Kenya; and the city of Sylhet in northeastern Bangladesh) and the ways in which each Plastic Monster performance adapted to the specifics of its respective environment and audience. We ask, in what ways might further participatory research and performative engagement help to democratise the research process, and promote the inclusion of diverse voices in discussions and decision-making processes?

7th International Marine Debris Conference ; Conference date: 12-09-2022 Through 21-10-2022