Future Fossils
Nina Oleynik
Bioplastic
2022
Nina Oleynik is a designer from Arlington, Virginia, and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She is an MFA candidate in Communications Design at Pratt Institute and is interested in design at the intersection of sustainability, functionality, and engagement. She is particularly interested in how we can use design to engage the public in sustainable futures in our every day. Coming from an undergraduate background in art history, she brings a historical design perspective to her work. She graduated from Colby College in 2018.
Nina Oleynik
Bioplastic
2022
Nina Oleynik is a designer from Arlington, Virginia, and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She is an MFA candidate in Communications Design at Pratt Institute and is interested in design at the intersection of sustainability, functionality, and engagement. She is particularly interested in how we can use design to engage the public in sustainable futures in our every day. Coming from an undergraduate background in art history, she brings a historical design perspective to her work. She graduated from Colby College in 2018.
These are conversation cards for and to the future. These cards can be seen as relics of our present, and the future’s past. They are printed on bioplastic material, a natural, biodegradable material that has no permanence. The questions they ask are about a material that permeates forever – plastic will live on beyond the degradation of bioplastics, and beyond the degradation of individual humans. We can imagine what people will ask of the material when future populations find these cards in an archeological dig or if they wash up on a beach. What can we ask of something that never goes away and sees it all? What will we say about it in the future? What will it say about us?
Because today’s plastic largely has a synthetic makeup, we often forget that it also comes from fossil fuels, which are ancient plant and animal material from the Earth. This project utilizes bioplastic material made from gelatin and cornstarch in order to re-connect and re-engage the natural with plastic. In making this project and thinking about what stories plastic can tell, the designer wanted to make the ethical choice and use a prop that would not live forever like plastic, but biodegrade over time. Bioplastics have a unique ability to connect our past, present, and future. While these bioplastic cards are temporary, they remind us what permeates and what fades.
Because today’s plastic largely has a synthetic makeup, we often forget that it also comes from fossil fuels, which are ancient plant and animal material from the Earth. This project utilizes bioplastic material made from gelatin and cornstarch in order to re-connect and re-engage the natural with plastic. In making this project and thinking about what stories plastic can tell, the designer wanted to make the ethical choice and use a prop that would not live forever like plastic, but biodegrade over time. Bioplastics have a unique ability to connect our past, present, and future. While these bioplastic cards are temporary, they remind us what permeates and what fades.
