Rise Above Plastics
Fighting single-use plastic pollution at Otis College of Art and Design
For over a decade Lara Hoad has been teaching the Rise Above Plastics class in the Creative Action Department at Otis College of Art and Design. With a focus on the reduction, reuse and refusal of single-use plastics, the class has partnered with environmental non-profit organizations such as Surfrider Foundation and 5 Gyres, and has engaged multi-disciplinary teams of students to create projects to raise awareness and change behavior around the production and consumption of single-use plastics. The class has produced hundreds of creative ideas, many of which have been implemented as public art and design installations and interventions, and have contributed to the wave of bans and regulations of single-use plastic products in the state of California.
Being established as an activist and educator in the area of single-use plastic prevention, Lara was invited in 2019 to be part of the eXXpedition all-female round the world sailing voyages to investigate the cause of, and solutions to, ocean plastic pollution. The Otis class partnered with eXXpedition for the semester and created the crew mascot “Nautalie the hawksbill turtle” and associated graphic zines for the crew to use in order to educate the schools and communities that they visit when in harbors around the world. Lara is continuing her work with plastic pollution and having become a Climate Reality Leader in 2020 is now partnering with the Los Angeles Climate Reality Plastics Committee to address the mounting issue of disposable, non-recyclable PPE as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Projects in partnership with Surfrider Foundation, 5 Gyres and eXXpedition. Images from left to right: The Thanksgiving mural , The interactive pledge to ditch using plastic straws, Reappropriated fly posted film posters, IG campaign to spotlight microplastics, Mascot and zines for eXXpedition sailing voyages, Screen printing bags featuring local sea life endangered by plastics for school kids in Nicaragua.