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AUSPICIOUS PLASTIC is a podcast about objects and what they mean to us.
“Objects should not touch [us] because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them: they are useful, nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts.” - John-Paul Sartre
When using my Mum's old Tupperware containers as "grief therapy" after she passed away, I became curious as to how a simple "piece of plastic" could hold so much meaning - and emotion. How these objects could touch me so profoundly, as if animated by something deeply mystical...
I was overtaken with wonder at how my use of these objects could be so powerful and therapeutic. And why it is we invest so much in ‘things’. How could a basic plastic container, a mere tool, make us so happy? Make me so happy, so connected, so filled with love and sadness?
To quote Sartre again, don’t we become “possessed by the things we possess”? And Tupperware – I mean, just plastic containers bound for land-fill, right? Or, could they be containers of fascinating, inter-generational stories?
So I'm on the road to discovering a whole world of stories about US: women, men, people, community, food, family, friendship, empowerment, and more. Sartre was onto something: objects aren’t just objects…
EPISODE ONE (PILOT)
I decided to start with one of my Mum's contemporaries. This is a conversation between myself, my lovely Aunty Delma and her daughter, my dear cousin Katherine.
The former is a five-decade-long "obsessed" Tupperware user, collector and "party holder", the latter a lifelong "Tupper-kid", now a demonstrator and freelance employee with the Australian branch of the company.
They talk candidly about how Tupperware has deeply touched their lives - and provide me with some answers as to why why it might have touched mine...
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Credits:
Interviews: Delma and Katherine Calcagno
Presenter/Producer: Megan Spencer
Original music: Jeremy Conlon/Cooperblack (used with permission) https://cooperblack.bandcamp.com
Logo: Studio Ink http://www.studioink.com.au
Thank you: Massimo Maio for the equipment loan! And to Delma and Katherine for the interview.
Contact: hello@themeganspencer.com
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/auspiciousplastic
Subscribe to and rate Auspicious Plastic on iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/auspicious-plastic/id1241088902?mt=2
All rights reserved.
'Auspicious Plastic' podcast (c) Megan Spencer 2017
Cannot be reproduced without permission.
- Genre
- Storytelling
