ALICIA PILLER | CRAFT CONTEMPORARY

Alicia Piller: Within, installation view, 2023. Courtesy of Craft Contemporary. Photo: Ian Byers-Gamber.

Alicia Piller

Craft Contemporary

January 29, 2023 — May 7, 2023

Introduction

Alicia Piller’s Within is an installation of multimedia works that investigates the relationship between macro and micro perspectives of knowledges, meaning, and bodily form. Piller uses resin, latex, xeroxed imagery, dried plants, stones, and found objects to create cosmic and biological landscapes that are an invitation for viewers to visually connect abstracted form with the complexities of human experience. The artist pulls apart and reconfigures mundane materials into a rich and deep form of visual storytelling that bridges time and place, reminding us that internally and externally we are part of fantastical worlds shaped by necessity, emotion, and wisdom.

Craft Contemporary Climate Policy

1. Our museum rotates up to three exhibitions on our three floors simultaneously, saving on labor, shipping/transportation, and materials.

2. We are focusing on showing local or Californian artists, not only to reduce carbon emissions related to shipping, airfare, and hotel stays but also as a conscious motivation to highlight the rich and diverse tapestry of artmaking in the region.

3. Philosophy of Reuse:

For all incoming artworks, we save and reuse the packaging the artworks were received in for their return. All the plastics, bubble wrap, and foam purchased are in constant reuse. We save cardboard boxes from deliveries and re-purpose them for artwork transportations.
We save and reuse all our hardware.
We place our customized pedestals and platforms on MuseoCycle, Barder.net, and Craigslist for others to benefit. Materials leftover from exhibitions such as fabric or vinyl banners are offered to artists and/or Public Programming and Education staff members for future art projects.

4. We take our e-waste, lights, and used paint cans to city-run recycling centers.

5. We are in a continuous phase to transition towards more sustainable installation materials, such as using biodegradable nitrile gloves and cloth tarps for painting. We also aspire to eco-friendly paint, PVC-free banners, and printed panels on recycled board instead of vinyl lettering.

6. In 2017-18, we have switched to low-energy LED lights for our galleries lighting and turn lights off after hours.

7. We strive to reduce waste from our printed exhibition materials by using 100% recycled paper, turning to QR code technology for lengthier information and reusing the printed materials whenever possible.

8. We are committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for our temporary preparators by maintaining diversity among crewmembers, providing healthy snack options, scheduled breaks and a regular wage increase.

9. We installed a filtered water faucet and have a kettle and coffee machine and ceramic reusable cups available in our kitchen to reduce the use of single-use containers.

10. We prioritize working with local vendors for our installation purchases, printing, and material sources. We are actively reducing our Amazon and Uline orders.

Carbon Emissions:

Because Alicia is a local artist (and we do favor local artists to save on shipping, airfare, hotel stays, and other environmental and financial costs), we were able to transport all her artworks in two truck loads. Alicia transported the smaller artworks herself during the 8 days of installation. This report includes Alicia’s own calculations on air and car travels as well as waste related to artwork production and packaging waste for the final emissions calculations. We also saved all her packaging to reuse once the exhibition closes. We used the EPA equivalencies calculator to visualize the equivalence of our total carbon emissions. For example, our emissions are equivalent to 2.9 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year or 1,499 gallons of gasoline consumed. This visualization really helps us realize what environmental cost, our exhibition in the space of four months can have.

Travel (tCO2e): 12.83

Shipping (tCO2e): 0.07

Energy Use (tCO2e): 0.01

Printing (tCO2e): 0.01

Material waste (tCO2e): 0.01

Artwork production (tCO2e): 0.39

Waste Report

Exhibition:

We made research into more sustainable options for wall vinyls and banners but the turnaround time was too short for us to meet the exhibition deadline, so we ended up going with the plastic vinyl as we used to. But we limit our vinyl to the exhibition text. Alicia's show does not have object labels so we also saved on additional printing. Some of Alicia's bubble wrap and tape had to be discarded because they were not able to be reused, but the bulk of the materials were saved. We reuse all our hanging devices. Alicia either hand-screwed or nailed her pieces to the wall, so we didn't use a lot of energy for that either. We used blue tape at a minimum for her space, mainly to mark holes to be patched. We do use wall spackling that contains plastic.

Estimate waste of plastic waste, like wall vinyls, plexi cases, bubble wrap, water bottles, etc.: 70.0 lbs

Estimate waste of other/general waste generated by the project: 30.00 lbs

Artwork Production:

Alicia made a spreadsheet of materials diverted from landfill as part of her process of making the work. On average, 45% of materials used for artwork were materials diverted from landfill.

Supporting People

The team of preparators is highly diverse, some of them graduates of the Broad's Diversity Apprenticeship Program. Since I was an art handler myself and worked among some of the preparators, it is my personal responsibility to improve their working conditions and create an atmosphere of conviviality and open communication. We take two 15 minute breaks in the morning and afternoon and a 45 minute lunch break. We provide healthy snack options, such as nuts and fruits. I also asked for two wage increases for the art handlers in the last year and a half and shared these with them. We re-use all our plastic packing materials and give away excess materials or platforms that we no longer use.

We pay transparent, living wages to workers; provided workers with healthy, climate-responsible choices like vegan and vegetarian snacks and meals at work events; low-waste coffee and water options; adequate personal time off; ensured diversity of representation in our team and collaborators; created spaces free of racism, harassment and other forms of inequity for our team; Prioritized working with small, cooperatively-owned, under-represented, and/or local businesses.

Collective Action

Working with Alicia and her insight towards climate action really pushed us to commit to creating this report.

Additional Thoughts

I appreciate the opportunity to work on this report and will move forward thinking more critically about our exhibitions’ environmental impact. As a member of the DEAI team, I have introduced the climate policy deduced from this report and am working to share it with the rest of the museum staff in order to implement a museum-wide climate protocol and sharing of resources.

Exhibition Info and Credits

jill moniz- guest curator

ro vo, Gozie Ojini, Rachel Dirk, Anna Marfleet, Joseph Baca- preparators

CIR prepared by: Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai

CIR reviewed by: Debra Scacco, Artists Commit Mentor

Exhibition link: https://www.craftcontemporary.org/exhibitions/alicia-piller-within/