During an unusually warm November morning in Buffalo, multimedia artist Nicole Chochrek greets a visitor at the main entrance of the Center for Exploratory & Perceptual Arts (CEPA) downtown gallery.
Coffee mug in hand, Chochrek descends a staircase into the dungeon-like basement that houses her workspace. The colorful array of bottle caps, produce tags and plastic zip ties resembles a game of I Spy more than the makings of an art project.
Chochrek has spent countless hours collecting and sorting these and other microplastics from Buffalo’s surrounding waterways as part of her Broken Plastics project, an arts and education initiative in partnership with organizations such as CEPA Gallery and the Buffalo Arts Commission
With thousands of pieces collected over more than a year, Chochrek incorporates them into sculptures, mosaics and educational displays as a way to raise awareness about the prevalence of microplastic and plastic pollution.
There is no shortage of materials, she said. “I’ve noticed within this practice that at the edge of the water — whether that’s a stream or Niagara River or Lake Erie — you will always find plastic debris.”
Microplastics, which are defined as objects 5 millimeters or smaller, are considered a health threat because they can be inhaled and ingested; enter a person’s bloodstream, urine, lungs or liver; and may put them at higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, according to The New England Journal of Medicine. Although some of the plastics Chochrek collects are larger, she still gathers them for the project because they will eventually break down into microplastics if left in nature.
“This is a serious issue, but I hope engaging in this work in an artful way allows room for curiosity to build,” said Chochrek, who was originally from Dallas and moved to New York to earn her master’s of fine arts from the University at Buffalo.
Her interest in microplastics began when she lived in Portugal, where she started collecting small pieces of plastic on the beach and saving them on her towel. With an undergraduate degree in environmental science, Chochrek knew microplastics’ environmental and health implications were significant.
Chochrek collects the microplastic pieces by hand during visits to Buffalo-area waterways, which she said can feel like performance art in itself.
She has also placed large, multicolored microplastic recycling bins around different Buffalo neighborhoods. The process of getting permission from local officials to distribute the bins required months of back-and-forth emails and the help of groups like the Buffalo Arts Commission.
“I can imagine if I were a solo artist trying to navigate it by myself with no support, I would question if it would have the ability to come to life in the same capacity,” Chochrek said.
Once the microplastics are in hand, Chochrek and a group of volunteers embark on the tedious task of sorting the pieces into collections and determining the best medium to display them. For her Plastic Homes sculpture project, Chochrek used plastics from Buffalo’s Unity Island to fill miniature houses made of old shower curtains.
The project poses emotional as well as logistical challenges for Chochrek, who can sometimes feel hopeless when trying to tackle the larger issue of eliminating microplastics.
“When I do this work, I am painfully aware that this is not a solution,” she said.
She likens the challenge to drawing an apple from memory: Everyone thinks they can draw one until they actually have to.
“Right now I feel like it’s this ambiguous apple floating in our heads that we think we can draw, but until you start drawing it there’s no way … to (acknowledge) it,” she said.
Chochrek plans to leverage her Broken Plastics project into more community-driven efforts, from hosting workshops and waterway cleanups to developing educational resources for teachers.
“I love this period because I do see this work growing, and its ability to reach and engage people,” Chochrek said.
