Madeleine Greenway: Plastic City

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Madeleine Greenway, "Plastic City," 2021

Plastic City is a mixed media installation of prints, recycled, and knitted plastics creating a facsimile of a grocery store display. Despite their mass-produced look, the fruits and vegetables depicted are all foraged or homegrown. This installation captures a moment of societal shift: humanity is still manufacturing and using plastics at an alarming rate, yet there are tangible movements towards less harmful ways of living and environmental stewardship.

Plastic and “plasticity” can also refer to adaptability, the ability to change, to be moulded, and our brain’s ability to change it’s very structure through learning. Plastic City is an imaginary place, set in this current moment of transition. It relies on plastic products, and defines itself by their use. Yet the Plastic City sees the changes in the world that surrounds it, and understands the need to change itself. Plastic City is ultimately, a place of hope. As it’s namesake infers, the city will adapt and change.

Madeleine Greenway is a printmaker and artist living and working in Regina SK. She received her BFA in Printmaking from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2014, and her MFA from the University of Regina in 2021. Greenway’s work focuses on the connections we have to food and food production. She frequently refers to her own home garden in North Central Regina as a site for investigation. In her most recent exhibition, Propagation, Greenway used still life works of homegrown food, narrative, and family portraits as a contemplation of family lineage, knowledge, and history. Her reflections on food include contemplations of relationships to land, communities, the environment, and industry.