In 2016, the National Museum of Scotland opened ten new science, technology, art and design galleries. Plastics in its many different forms are on display in virtually every one – jewellery, furniture, prosthetic limbs, telephones.
In particular, the Making It gallery looks at manufacturing materials, processes and working practices over the past 200 years. The gallery includes an updated version of a plastics display of 20 years earlier, which ranged from 1920s Bakelite to 1990s plastic consumer waste, such as drinks bottles and bags.
The updated text panel has a neutral title of New Materials, while the display itself is entitled Fantastic Plastic, to emphasise that for much of the 20th century it was indeed a wonder material for manufacturers. The table of handling objects in front of the display echoed this message.
As curators in a multidisciplinary museum, we were aware that our colleagues in the Natural World galleries have displayed plastic waste which has devastating detrimental impacts on animals, as a counterpoint to our newer display on plastic as a consumer product.
Very understandably, however, visitors to the museum do not make the connection, or see both displays, which resulted in a number of comments on the unreconstructed nature of the Fantastic Plastic interpretation.
Three years on, as a result of visitor feedback, we are updating the table of handling specimens to focus on the ever-growing range of materials now made from recycled plastic.
The display in Making It is also scheduled for reinterpretation this year. It will still feature plastics throughout the 20th century, as they were indeed fantastic in many ways for manufacturers and consumers. It will, however, highlight the detrimental environmental impact of its ubiquitous use.
The redisplay has been a catalyst for our contemporary collecting initiatives. We are seeking to collect examples of Scottish innovation in the new bioplastics, made for example from shellfish, seaweed or whisky waste, as companies aim to replace fossil-fuel based products and return full-circle to 19th-century innovations in natural plastics.
The complex conservation issues over the longer-term sustainability of plastics in museum collections still apply to these newer materials of course, as they have for years to our degrading older plastics in store.
This in turn is opening up broader curatorial and conservation debates about the principle of collecting for the long term.
Alison Taubman is the principal curator, technology and communications at National Museums Scotland
In particular, the Making It gallery looks at manufacturing materials, processes and working practices over the past 200 years. The gallery includes an updated version of a plastics display of 20 years earlier, which ranged from 1920s Bakelite to 1990s plastic consumer waste, such as drinks bottles and bags.
The updated text panel has a neutral title of New Materials, while the display itself is entitled Fantastic Plastic, to emphasise that for much of the 20th century it was indeed a wonder material for manufacturers. The table of handling objects in front of the display echoed this message.
As curators in a multidisciplinary museum, we were aware that our colleagues in the Natural World galleries have displayed plastic waste which has devastating detrimental impacts on animals, as a counterpoint to our newer display on plastic as a consumer product.
Very understandably, however, visitors to the museum do not make the connection, or see both displays, which resulted in a number of comments on the unreconstructed nature of the Fantastic Plastic interpretation.
Three years on, as a result of visitor feedback, we are updating the table of handling specimens to focus on the ever-growing range of materials now made from recycled plastic.
The display in Making It is also scheduled for reinterpretation this year. It will still feature plastics throughout the 20th century, as they were indeed fantastic in many ways for manufacturers and consumers. It will, however, highlight the detrimental environmental impact of its ubiquitous use.
The redisplay has been a catalyst for our contemporary collecting initiatives. We are seeking to collect examples of Scottish innovation in the new bioplastics, made for example from shellfish, seaweed or whisky waste, as companies aim to replace fossil-fuel based products and return full-circle to 19th-century innovations in natural plastics.
The complex conservation issues over the longer-term sustainability of plastics in museum collections still apply to these newer materials of course, as they have for years to our degrading older plastics in store.
This in turn is opening up broader curatorial and conservation debates about the principle of collecting for the long term.
Alison Taubman is the principal curator, technology and communications at National Museums Scotland
