Synthetic materials as heritage? A book launch conversation

Fish bowl and book launch of "Rest in Plastic: Death, time and synthetic materials in a Ghanaian Ewe community" by Isabel Bredenbröker

Confirmed participants:

Saskia Abrahms Kavunenko (Humboldt-Universität, in.herit fellow working on plastic on Christmas Island, anthropologist).

Heidi Jalkh (associated member Matters of Activity, co-curator of Matters of South / Kunstgewerbemuseum, experimental industrial designer).

Elisabeth Heyne (Museum für Naturkunde, Natur der Dinge collection).

Bright Asante (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung BAM).

Isabel Bredenbröker (HZ) 

About the book:

In Peki, an Ewe town in the Ghanaian Volta Region, death is a matter of public concern. By means of funeral banners printed with synthetic ink on PVC, public lyings in state, cemented graves and wreaths made from plastic, death occupies a prominent place in the world of the living. Rest in Plastic gives an insight into local entanglements of death, synthetic materials and power in Ewe community. It shows how different materials and things that come to shape power relations, exist in a delicate balance between state and local governance, kin and outsiders, death and life, the invisible and the visible, movement and containment.

More about the book here.