Siberian Hermitage hosted Fantastic Plastic, an exhibition of the Moscow Design Museum

19 december 2022

On December 11, 2022, Omsk’s Siberian Hermitage center hosted the final stage of Fantastic Plastic, an ambitious project of the Moscow Design Museum, winner of the 2021 Glamour Eco Awards, implemented with the support of SIBUR as part of the company’s social investment program, the Formula for Good Deeds.

The final days of the exhibition were abuzz with all sorts of activities. As part of the exhibition’s educational program, a workshop for children aged 6 and up was put on by Reclame studio jointly with Elena Neverova, in addition to a lecture on "A Hundred Years of Design in Russia" by Aleksandra Sankova, co-founder and general director of the Moscow Design Museum, and a premiere of the eponymous documentary, Fantastic Plastic, produced specially for the project to trace the idea behind it back to its origins. The primary objective was to showcase what plastics mean to designers and artists from different countries, to get a glimpse into the process of their creative thinking, their special knack for looking at things and for sensing new possibilities for putting recycled materials to various uses.

The film is to be included in the program of the Days of Science Cinema run as part of the Festival of Contemporary Scientific Cinema (FUNK): Fantastic Plastic will be shown at Tomsk State University on December 21 so it can be enjoyed by the residents of Tomsk, too. The exhibition was held between October 14 and December 11, 2022, during which time it was visited by more than 5,500 residents of Omsk, including those who came as part of more than 60 organized group tours. The exhibition put on display projects created by more than 20 Russian and foreign studios, such as Bulyash Todaeva, Sasha Polyarus, Galina Larina, the Netherlands’ Polimeer Studio, EcoBirdy, Belgium, and Engel, the Netherlands, as well as articles created by Omsk’s own designers, including an EcoBike by Petr Melnikov, a bicycle with a frame made from recycled plastic bottles, and accessories made from recycled banner fabrics and plastic bags by Elena Neverova.

Thanks to the support of Omsk’s Vrubel Regional Museum of Fine Arts and coordination provided by Polyom LLC, a joint venture between SIBUR Holding and Gazprom Neft, the Moscow Design Museum held six free educational classes including a discussion about ecology and design organized for a professional audience. The discussion was attended by Ilya Lobov, Omsk Oblast’s Minister of Natural Resources Management and Environment, Olga Kudryavtseva, head of health, safety, environment, and civil defense at Polyom, Alexandra Sankova, general director of the Moscow Design Museum, Farida Bureyeva, director of Omsk’s Vrubel Regional Museum of Fine Arts, as well as by Omsk-based designers, creators of environmental workshops and brands such as Reclame, EcoBike, #ECOLAB, Mobile Recycling Collection Station. The recordings of the classes are available for viewing at the exhibition’s group on the Vkontakte social network.

Omsk became the final stop on Fantastic Plastic’s 2022 route. It was a real enjoyment to hold our exhibition here, to meet local designers who care about the development of their home city and with whom we intend to continue our collaboration in the future. We had a great pleasure cooperating with Omsk’s Vrubel Museum of Fine Arts. Each new city helps us extend our Fantastic Plastic project further, and each time we learn something new, try to improve something, educate people more about Russian designers, and showcase what is being done across our country. This is an opportunity that was made possible thanks to SIBUR’s support, General Director of the Moscow Design Museum, Alexandra Sankova, noted.

SIBUR has been implementing a whole range of projects aimed at promoting separate waste collection and raising environmental awareness of the residents of the cities where the company operates. Fantastic Plastic is one of our key projects in this field. Our cooperation with the Moscow Design Museum allowed us to show Omsk’s residents the opportunities that recycling of plastics opens up in the field design while doing this in an entertaining and accessible format. Thanks to the exhibition, our educational lectures and the film we showed, we were able to inform people not only about the various uses of plastics, but also about everyone's possible contribution to the preservation of our planet. That's why it was especially gratifying to see that these events had evoked tremendous positive response from the city’s citizens, Elena Snezhko, Head of the Formula for Good Deeds social investment program, commented.