LIVE STREAMING EVENT 7PM PDT. 10PM EDT

Created by award-winning Brooklyn-based artist, puppet designer and director Robin Frohardt, The Plastic Bag Store was conceived as an immersive installation and puppet-theater piece designed to take place in a storefront retail space. Yucky Shards cereal, Bagorade sports drink, Fabags deodorizers boasting “that fresh bag scent”, rotisserie chickens, cupcakes and sushi are among the thousands of hand sculpted items—all made from discarded plastic bags. The store was scheduled to open in March 2020 to coincide with New York’s plastic bag ban but was postponed due to the city’s COVID-19 lockdown ultimately opening in a vacant Times Square storefront for a limited audience in Fall 2020 earning a spot on the NY Times’ Best of 2020 Theater list. For L.A. audiences, Frohardt and her team will reimagine a visit to The Plastic Bag Store through a new film commissioned by CAP UCLA.

Plastic Bag Store: The Film transforms the installation into a dynamic series of stories that traverse ancient history, the present day and a future dystopia. The Plastic Bag Store employs inventive puppetry, humor, craft and a critical lens to explore how the hordes of plastic waste might be misinterpreted by future generations.

Frohardt states, “The Plastic Bag Store is a visually rich and humorous experience that hopefully encourages a different way of thinking about the foreverness of plastic, the permanence of the disposable, and that there is no 'away' when we throw something out. There is great humor to be found in the pitfalls of capitalism—humor and satire can be powerful tools for social criticism especially with issues that feel too sad and overwhelming to confront directly.”

Join us before the screening at 5:45 PM for Unpacking The Plastic Crisis, a dynamic discussion exploring how local environmental policies disproportionately impact communities of color, and how a new generation of activists are on the frontline of reimagining environmental justice solutions.