Plastic People-Dilemma is a performative conversation sculpture developed by artist Oliver Hangl, which will be performed as part of the Klima Biennale Wien in collaboration with the Siemens Art Commission. A festival like the Klima Biennale aims to raise awareness of the pressing issues of our time while also promoting a paradigm shift towards a more sustainable future. Nonetheless, it is (as of yet) unavoidable that every guest will leave an ecological footprint, from getting to the event, purchasing tickets, or posting selfies to consuming food and beverages and using the lavatories. This is where Oliver Hangl’s social sculpture Plastic People-Dilemma enters the picture: Calling on the media, he takes over public space and proposes that we all work together to create the largest possible sculpture of our ecological footprint. To represent our excessive use of resources and the resulting ecological footprint, he chooses Polyethylene Terephthalate, a mono-material commonly found in PET bottles. Plastic People-Dilemma is being developed through a collective process without formal guidelines. The primary focus of the project is to stimulate dialogue and raise awareness of our self-inflicted dilemma of growing mountains of waste. We use the most complex technological processes to return part of the waste to the recycling chain, while the rest is incinerated.

Hangl’s Plastic People-Dilemma manifests this socio-ecological dilemma in which we find ourselves as a linear-thinking and wasteful society. What is required to avoid recycling altogether and instead work within circular economy parameters?