Latest news with #TRES
Boston Globe
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
At Harvard's Peabody Museum, plastic as inspiration — and threat
Founded in Mexico City, in 2009, TRES comprises Ilana Boltvinik and Rodrigo Viñas. They take as their mission surveying trash, its effects, and how refuse and the consequences of its disposal endure. They're very much aware that throwing something away just means it ends up somewhere else. With 'Castaway,' the somewhere elses are the beaches of Australia and Tasmania. Advertisement The show is an invitingly cunning jumble. It includes maps, postcards, marine specimens, a TRES notebook (fascinating to examine), and photographs of various discarded items as well as examples of such items. The photographs are unmatted, with black frames, making content rather than form the chief focus. The largest is 3 feet by nearly 2½ feet, the smallest is roughly 7 inches by 5 inches. Trash isn't uniform, so don't expect photographs of it to be. TRES, "Strange Kind of Hope II," 2016. The twist, and TRES likes twists, is how beautiful these objects can sometimes be. There's a bottle cap, for example, marbled blue by bryozoa, tiny marine organisms. In size and appearance, it could easily be mistaken for a gemstone or water-covered planet. The scary thing about 'Castaway,' as TRES intends, is this juxtaposition of beauty and damage. Advertisement That particular bottle cap has a title: 'And Yet It Moves.' The title works as a double play on words. What you or I dispose of keeps on moving: to a landfill, the ocean, or, if incinerated, into the air. Yes, 'it,' whatever that it might be, moves, all right. And the title alludes to Galileo's legendary response to being told by the Catholic Church that it was heresy to state that the Earth travels around the sun. He knew otherwise. Now we're the ones choosing to ignore a different irrefutable movement, one much closer to home. The TRES titles can be very funny, but in this context that can make them all the more dismaying. A photograph of a discarded rubber glove is called 'Intraterrestrial Ghost.' Fingers extended, it looks like a warning — or reproach. 'The Invasion of Everything' shows a sign advertising soft drinks. 'A Moon for Méliès (Le Voyage dans Lune)' presents a lunar-looking bottle cap — there are multiple bottle caps in 'Castaway' — which recalls the look of the destination in Georges Méliès's fabled silent film 'A Trip to the Moon' (1902). TRES, "Agency, Of Hybrids and Other Things," 2016 In 'Under the Bottle Cap, the Iceberg,' we see a thrown-away water bottle. The play of associations is especially rich: 'tip of the iceberg,' icebergs and water, and (remembering where the bottle was found) that slogan favored by young radicals during the student protests in France in May 1968: 'Beneath the paving stones, the beach!' In this case, it becomes: 'On the beach, the trash!' That in turn, speaking of French filmmakers, connects to the celebrated credit in Jean Luc-Godard's 1966 film 'Masculin féminin': 'the children of Marx and Coca-Cola.' Coke bottles back then were glass rather than plastic. Not that that kept them from being tossed, by Communist kids and capitalist kids alike. Advertisement 'Castaway' is the rare art exhibition where the verbal matters no less than the visual or conceptual, thanks to the pungency and artfulness of the titles, along with the descriptive information explaining what we're looking at, which frequently is quite different than what we might assume we're looking at. TRES, "Parallel Lives II," 2016. As it happens, the works lack labels or captions. Instead, the information is available on placards, which visitors can pick up and consult. Or not. Looking at 'Castaway' without any textual information, then doing it again with placard in hand might be the best way to experience the show. The Peabody awards a CASTAWAY: The Afterlife of Plastic At Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, through April 6. 617-496-1027, Mark Feeney can be reached at
Boston Globe
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Free events this week: Pop-up hip-hop performances, ‘Mean Girls' trivia, and the Greater Roxbury Book Fair
YO GO GLEN COC O 'Mean Girls,' known for its comedic influence and memorable one-liners, will become the topic du jour for Lord Hobo Brewing's trivia this Monday night. Brush up on the 2004 teen comedy's iconic references for the chance to take home a (metaphorical) crown May 12, 6-9 p.m. 5 Draper St., Woburn. Advertisement The Mexican art collective TRES will be at the Peabody Museum for an exhibition of their environmentalist project 'Castaway: The Afterlife of Plastic.' TRES (ilana boltvinik and rodrigo viñas) FAKE PLA STIC EARTH Tired of visiting the same paintings and ceramics on every art-venture? Perhaps you'd be interested in viewing more eccentric creations — something trashier . This Thursday,Harvard's Peabody Museum and Museums of Science & Culture will present art made from waste for the May 15, 6-7 p.m. 24 Oxford St., Cambridge. In collaboration with the Cambridge Hip Hop Collective, MIT Open Space will bring live hip-hop and R&B performances to Kendall Square this Wednesday. Noah Phoenix for MIT Open Space Advertisement MID DAY GROOVES If you're in Kendall Square Wednesday afternoon, there's a chance you may hear smooth instrumentals reverberating throughout the area. The source? May 14, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Suffolk Bldg., 292 Main St., Cambridge. LOCAL LITERARY FAIR The Greater Roxbury Book Fair returns for its third year, celebrating reading, literary connection, and local entrepreneurship. Along with author panels, workshops, and signings, an open-air local market of Roxbury-based vendors and literary organizations will be set up for attendees to shop or converse with local leaders. The programming will be full of interactive activities for all ages, bringing attention to the importance of literacy at any stage in life. May 17, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. 149 Dudley St., Roxbury. Cape Ann Museum will show "Feathered Friends," a second-grade project and "Facing Back, Facing Forward," an eighth-grade project created by local children. Courtesy of Cape Ann Museum BUDDING ARTISTS As art lovers search for the artists of tomorrow, some children are already the artists of today. The Cape Ann Museum will host an opening reception to present two original art installations created by second- and eighth-grade students from Cape Ann Public Schools. Each work, made with the guidance of museum educators, was inspired by works in the CAM collections: 'The Feathered Friends,' an ode to Gloucester block printmakers Folly Cove Designers, and 'Facing Back, Facing Forward,' an introspective exploration of vintage maps and mapmaking, made with acrylic paints. May 17, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 13 Poplar St., Gloucester. g Advertisement P OETRY OPEN MIC Poets of all levels can expand their creative mind-set and find inspiration through a community-based experience. At Trident Booksellers' Sunday open mic, budding Dickinsons and Angelous in the making can stop by to test out their newest work (or others' that they love) in front of a crowd — readers are limited to three minutes, and yes, notecards and cheat sheets are welcome. Signups are first come, first served and begin at 6:30 p.m. May 18, 6:30-9 p.m. 338 Newbury St. Marianna Orozco can be reached at
