Knowing that the Earth is home to my soul,
Despite the disillusion of alienation, of eternal separation from the living Earth
We are not Aliens, we are not alone.
I want to be all things around me: to re-shape my identity
To hold this plastic as sparkling, not toxic
When I am thinking of you, I’m becoming you: plastic bag, plastic bottle, plastic feelings

Separated by textures of waste, divided by layers of discarded materials
I feel trapped, suffocated by all the shiny objects surrounding me.
What am I doing and what choices am I making?

When I am alone, I don’t know if maybe this plastic is just another form of energy or if it’s just me stepping out of the dream of separation.

Release and surrender. It is time to let go and surrender. Release and surrender. In this lifetime, you are being called upon to experience emotions more than ever. I know they don’t merge, they simply don’t fit in this world. I carry the Earth and your dreams for the future.

I invite all of you to re-shape your thoughts, your bodies, and your movements, to invoke all the energy that could be in what we call it now p l a s t I c. Release, and surrender. Breathe.

A person ingests 2 plastic bags per year through microplastics! Every week, an average of 5 grams of plastic ends up in a person's body. We breathe, eat, and drink water that contains plastic. We are plastic. The premise that drives the artistic process is the deconstruction of analytical and critical thinking, movement, and the reality of the body, the plasticity of the body concerning the properties of plastic materials. With the help of my body, the plastic objects in my own home, and new media creations, I invite you to embark on an immersive emotional journey. The world has been seen under a microscope, in detail, the movement of plastic creates suffocation, anxiety, and at times, fascination. I aim to question the plastic crisis to the human crisis. Individual alienation, increased risk of disembodiment and identity loss, corporeal. The artistic endeavor begins precisely by probing the strong affect with which we invest meaning in the surrounding world of objects. I aim to identify, through the body as a performative instrument and through microscopic images, the mechanisms of coexistence between the natural and the artificial-plastic, through storytelling around the body. The observations and reflections are translated into my performative response, to provide an answer to the environmental crisis, which I consider a crisis of the relationship with one's self.

Concept & ecoperformer: Alina Tofan

(with the participation of Ioana Buraga: New Media Artist)