Transform Plastic, Reforest Imaginations. Interview with Chinese-American artist Mary Maggic

I've been living in Vienna since becoming a mama in 2018 when Lola was born. That year marked several major life changes—moving to a new city, becoming a mother, and shifting my artistic practice to Europe. Fortunately, I already had a network here, particularly with the global art & science and hacker community Hackteria. Before Vienna, I was based in the US. I grew up in a densely Chinese suburb of LA, completed my bachelor's degree in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and earned my master's at MIT Media Lab in Massachusetts. While I lived in various parts of the US, Los Angeles is where I was born and raised.

Since moving to Europe, I've actually delved deeper into all the practices you mentioned. While these exist in the US as well, Europe offers more intersection between fields like biohacking and bio-art. What I love about the community I belong to (Hackteria) – whose tagline is open source biological art – is that they were the first to show me that practicing science, technology, or biology as an artist doesn't require a PhD, a team of scientists, or a €100,000 budget. I've always been fascinated by alternative forms of knowledge production. That's why I've always been interested in translating institutional knowledge into something accessible, easy to understand, easy to reproduce, and affordable for everyone to try. Hackteria perfectly aligned with my values, I aligned with theirs, and I can say it shaped me into the artist I am today.

There is a strong institutionalization of all of these practices, for sure. But what I mean relates more to Europe's geography and cultural specificity. In Europe, you can reach numerous countries just by train, which enables much more cross-contamination. In the US, you need to fly to get to the East Coast—we don't have a well-developed train system, which makes connections more difficult. Here, right next door to Vienna, there is Slovenia, Switzerland, France, Germany... and Italy. These places offer incredibly diverse practices and approaches that I can easily visit, simply say hello, and collaborate with. That's what I love about being in Europe.

I first encountered the term during the Hackteria Lab in Indonesia in 2014. People there constantly used the word workshopology, following the idea that anything can become an "-ology" or a science. Some would playfully call room assignments "bed-ology" – essentially turning anything into an "-ology."

As we conducted more workshops and hacking sessions, this concept of workshopology evolved into something deeper – a practice rather than just a theory or science. You're not simply repeating the same workshop with different audiences; you're iterating, improving, and incorporating participant feedback. It's not a one-off workshop or concept repeated verbatim, but a true workshopology that continuously evolves and develops.

Central to this approach is the removal of hierarchy between facilitator and participants, recognizing that everyone brings valuable knowledge to share. It creates an even playing field where people collaborate like musicians in a jam session – each contributing their unique voice while creating something collective.

Strollology is a perfect example. Walking seems natural and universal, but when you deconstruct it in a workshop setting, you start questioning what walking actually means. When participants join in, each brings their unique perspective on walking, and the concept expands organically. As an artist, I believe workshopology deserves recognition as its own medium, just like painting or sculpting. This approach is far more effective than the passive consumption of art in museums, where visitors rarely connect with the artist's process or methodology.

I would say so. For me, it's a powerful research methodology. Having people and specific contexts allows me to experiment, delve deeper, and discover new questions worth exploring.

The LabVerde residency was very special for me. In my early 20s, I used to go and volunteer for conservation research in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama. I lived in cloud forests, slept in hammocks, bathed in rivers, collected DNA samples from frogs—basically living my best life. When I saw the open call from LabVerde, I thought it was time to revisit the forest with a different gaze. This time I went as an artist, with a more critical eye, no longer focused on collecting data or holding onto the belief that “science is the best form of conservation.”

I believe artists have a lot to contribute to the cultural dialogue about why we should care for these forests—why Indigenous voices and knowledge should be respected and protected. In the Amazon, I witnessed incredible beauty: I saw flying rivers for the first time. But I also saw death and destruction. Our group had to collectively process that grief and sense of loss. Emotional transformation has always been a theme in my work, but during this trip it felt even more present. We had lectures from scientists showing how deforestation in the Amazon affects global weather systems: altering ocean currents, contributing to Arctic ice melt, raising Atlantic water levels and temperatures, and even impacting Australia. It’s one interconnected reaction chain.

After the residency, I came straight back to Vienna. The contrast was depressing—I went from the richness of life in the forest to a city of concrete and metal. I started asking myself: Why am I living like this? What brought us here? I felt something deeply in my body but didn’t have the words for it. So I began reading, searching for language. That’s when I found Krenak’s Ancestral Future. It articulated the alienation I was feeling. The book also addresses what people in urban landscapes can do to reconnect with the forest. That’s where the term florestania comes from—a combination of the Portuguese floresta (forest) and cidadania (citizenship).

It shifts your perspective on relating to the environment—moving away from disconnection toward belonging. Not many realize that one of the main strategies of colonialism and capitalism is separation: separating us from nature, from land, from heritage, origins, ancestry. Once separated, we become just another cog in the capitalist system—easier to control, easier to manipulate.

To answer that, I think we need to talk about plastic. Plastic is such an interesting material because it's everywhere, practically inescapable, and a huge source of waste. To me, it's a powerful symbol of urbanization. In my own artistic practice, I've frequently worked with plastic waste. People living and born in cities don't consent to pollution of any kind. Nobody consents to it, but it happens anyway as part of daily life and in some ways we all contribute to it. I don't want to shame people who don't have opportunities to connect with nature, or who have lost that connection through migration or other circumstances. It's more about how we can work with the alienation that already exists right in front of us. Plastic is a good starting point because waste represents a profound form of alienation. Waste and pollution are forms of colonialism. We're taught to throw everything away, hide it under landfills, or burn it in incinerators rather than actually addressing the issue. Working with plastic initiates this conversation about what we do with our waste.

I think interacting with waste gives you a great sense of agency. Plastic pollution is such a devastating topic, and you often feel powerless against the massive scale of production. But once you start working with plastic directly, you realize, "I actually do have some control over this material and what it means for my future and my environment." So yeah, I think there's real value in actually engaging with waste.

I was always interested in the Precious Plastic movement. I heard about it many years ago, when the first open source machines came out. I was really happy to discover there was a branch of Precious Plastic in Vienna, and I had seen works from FANTOPLAST in various places around the city, so I really wanted to find a way to collaborate.

I attended this workshop in January—about a month after I came back from the residency in the Amazon—so I was still in this reflective and introspective mode, thinking about how to connect plastic with urbanization, the Amazon, and climate change—how to connect these seemingly distant topics. Going into this workshop, I had this idea of transporting plastic waste from the Amazon River basin to Vienna and creating a forest from there. Which sounds like a crazy idea, but I thought, why not?

I received the invitation from BIG ART in summer 2024, and submitted my first proposal in October. Then I went to the Amazon in November. When I returned, I completely changed my perspective on my initial proposal, which focused on circularity and recycling materials. My time in the Amazon had instilled a new passion in me and completely transformed my definition of sustainability.

I asked then BIG ART for more time to develop a new proposal and find collaborators. They were incredibly patient with me. I submitted my second proposal in February, after securing FANTOPLAST's participation and meeting Sofia (who’s curating the overall design) and Leon (who’s responsible for logistics and material sourcing) during the very same workshop.

It was such a serendipitous moment—we were randomly placed in the same group for an exercise about creating a fictional, speculative plastic company. I suggested, "Why don't we deal with the trash from other countries? What if we transported waste from Manaus, Brazil all the way to Vienna?". Though it began as a simple workshop exercise, they embraced the concept and offered numerous creative ideas. I revealed to them, "Actually, I have funding for this. We could turn this into reality." I could see on their faces, they were so enthusiastic.

Yeah, but life is always like that. You never know who's going to pop into your life and suddenly become your collaborator or a close friend. It's very unpredictable.

That's another interesting aspect (unpredictability), because the project focuses on caring for the Amazon, sustainability, and circularity, yet BIG is the largest real estate developer in Austria. The Village im Dritten is another massive project that's essentially industrializing this whole area—creating all these new buildings with geothermal systems. They represent this urbanizing force.

When I first met with the main ARE (Austrian Real Estate) representative, Gregor Wiltschko, he showed genuine openness to community-led projects and activations. He expressed particular interest in urban gardening groups and had previously hosted the urbanize! festival on the property. I sensed a real willingness to have these conversations, despite ARE being a building developer that might be viewed as very capitalist. I felt it was crucial not to judge or shame the other side, but rather to involve them in dialogue and create change from within the system. I believe one of our strengths as artists is that we're shapeshifters. We can enter these systems, look inside them, and identify what can be improved or changed because we bring this critical perspective. At the same time, we have the responsibility to communicate our ideas, concepts, and philosophies to the general public.

They rejected my proposal to use trash from the Amazon. As a result, I had to adapt the project to a local context, working with waste already in Vienna. I completely understand their decision. It actually fits the circumstances better and makes the project more feasible—we saved significantly on shipping costs. It was simply a practical change of plans.

One of the main forms of circularity that this project is developing is actually to sell this installation as artworks to fundraise for forest care. Essentially what we're doing is taking plastic waste, transforming it into art, which then gets transformed into money.

Money from big companies or from very wealthy benefactors, and then going back to the land and going back to the forest. So that's the overall big picture of this project.

When I was conceptualizing the installation, I wanted to tell a story about what the rainforest truly represents. I knew I wanted a medicinal tree with healing properties. I also wanted a tree symbolizing resilience and adaptability—qualities essential to the rainforest. Lastly, I wanted a tree that represented life—not just what's visible on the surface, but also the unseen spiritual dimension of it.

That's how I discovered the Kapok Tree, also known as the tree of life. It perfectly embodies the spiritual elements of the forest because its roots mirror its branches—they're equally wide, strong, and thick. This creates a beautiful reflection of the "upper world" and the "lower world." Countless mythologies surround this tree, depicting it as a bridge between these two realms of existence. The Kapok also hosts numerous micro-ecosystems, providing habitat for diverse species—other plants grow on it, birds nest in it, and entire ecosystems thrive within its roots. It's truly a symbolic centerpiece for our installation.

For the healing, medicinal tree, I initially had a different idea, but Raphael (one of Precious Plastic Vienna and FANTOPLAST’s co-founders) suggested the Moringa Tree. I was already familiar with it from my residency in Indonesia. What's fascinating about the Moringa is that its seeds can actually purify water.

And lastly we chose Palms. While we decided to make some conventional palms, I specifically wanted to include the Walking Palm. I think it perfectly symbolizes the rainforest because these kind of palms appear to stand on stilts, with roots that seem to float above the earth. This is actually a survival mechanism for the rainy season, helping them manage rising water levels when large sections of the forest flood. That's why I wanted the Walking Palm to represent the forest's resilience.

I believe mythology offers a sacred lens through which to view life. It teaches us to respect the mysteries that, while beyond our comprehension, remain integral to who we are. I love how the book refers to landscape features as family members—"Father Mountain," for instance. There's profound meaning behind our concept of "Mother Nature"—we all originate from nature; we aren't separate from it. These stories help reforest our imagination.

I want to emphasize that this is truly a collective endeavor. We intentionally designed this project to require many participants for its realization. The more people who join our mission, the greater our impact will be. Everyone can contribute a small part toward the bigger picture. That is also FANTOPLAST’s vision I guess. When you guys present your company's work, you talk about how we're all part of this movement—engaging with waste in a transformative way. Though we're a small percentage of people doing this work, we're steadily contributing to that percentage.