Everlasting Plastics: Exploring Our Toxic Dependency on Plastic in Architecture, Art, and Everyday Life

Everlasting Plastics: Rethinking Our Relationship with Synthetic Materials
Edited by Tizziana Baldenebro, Lauren Leving, Joanna Joseph, and Isabelle Kirkham-Lewitt

Published by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, Everlasting Plastics is a groundbreaking book that explores the complex, enduring relationship between humans and plastics. Stemming from the acclaimed 2023 U.S. Pavilion exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale, this 256-page volume delves into how synthetic materials shape our ecologies, economies, and cultural behaviors.

More than just a catalog, this paperback publication functions as a hybrid between exhibition and critical inquiry—featuring essays, sketches, and artworks by leading artists, architects, and scholars. Contributors include madison moore, Laura Raicovich, Shannon Rae Stratton, Marisa Solomon, Jessica Varner, Michele Washington, and many others.

Everlasting Plastics challenges readers to rethink both the physical and philosophical permanence of plastic in our lives. Rather than advocating for or against plastic, it reveals the entangled, often toxic dependencies we have developed—and the potential for change. Ideal for readers interested in environmental design, material culture, sustainability, and contemporary art.