Plasticaia

Plastic is both a noun, referring to the materiality of an object, and an adjective, referring to the ability of any material or thing to be molded into a particular shape. Plasticaia is a neologism that the artist created to reference two concepts: plastic and the limonaia. What these two ideas have in common is a plasticity to the natural world that can be manipulated and shaped according to human needs or desires. Creating parallels among the Renaissance gardens, limonaias, and plastic, DeBlassie asks the question: how has the human propensity to control nature, to force nature to “contain” human desire and need, to force nature to compensate for something seen as lacking, created problems in contemporary life? DeBlassie made symmetrical plastic-crate hedges to form a “garden” inside this “limonaia glass house” at the Villa Romana in Florence, and edged into these architectural hedges are small tubes that contain citrus trees: nature tries to persevere despite the devastating human impact on the environment.