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Chicago Puppet Fest presents:

Robin Frohardt: The Plastic Bag Store

January 20-30, 2022

The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival “anchor attraction” is The Plastic Bag Store, open for the duration of the festival in a street-level storefront in Chicago’s Wrigley Building. New York artist Robin Frohardt’s tragi-comic ode to the foreverness of plastic appears to be a storefront grocery, but it’s actually stocked with hundreds of hand-made items—fruits, vegetables, sushi, deli meats and more — all crafted from organic NYC trash. Several times a day, the Store transforms from an installation into a micro-cinema for a series of dynamic puppet-films that transport the audience from the distant past into a dystopian future. With her distinct sense of humor, Frohardt challenges us to think about how future generations will misinterpret us by the waste we leave behind.

This Chicago presentation of The Plastic Bag Store was made possible by generous support from:

The Plastic Bag Store is commissioned by Times Square Arts with generous support provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the National Endowment for the Arts; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional commissioning support has been provided by Carolina Performing Arts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was developed with support from: MANA Contemporary, The Made in NY Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts; Olson Kundig; The Jim Henson Foundation; and is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). The Plastic Bag Store is a project of Creative Capital.

The Plastic Bag Store film segments were commissioned by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance with additional support by the Adelaide Festival.

Co-Produced by Robin Frohardt and Pomegranate Arts

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