New whimsical, sustainable pop art exhibit comes to Fort Worth Botanic Gardens
There's a new whimsical pop art exhibit that opened this week at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.
The imaginative installations are meant to bring awareness to nature, recycling and environmental conservation – it's called Cracking Art and it's a cooperative from Italy that was formed in 1993.
"The name kind of implies what they do, like cracking in their head is because cracking is the physical process by which you turn natural oil into synthetic products like plastics," said George Cripps, the director of events and exhibits at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. "So, by taking recycling plastics that already exist, they're cracking them into art."
The new exhibit features 80 larger-than-life animal sculptures made from recycled plastics.
"They stand out, so you come over and you want to see what's going on," said Sarah Southerland, who was visiting with her 5-year-old daughter Libby.
The installations in the collection reflect animals found in the Dallas Fort Worth region. The new exhibit at the gardens aims to change the history of art through a strong social and environmental commitment.
"I think they're really pretty, like, really eye-catching… the bright colors. I think it's really cool seeing all the animals," said visitor Ashlyn Sutton. "From far away. I couldn't really tell what it was, but once I got closer, I was like, oh, well, that's an elephant. Oh, yeah, I would definitely come back."
The Fort Worth Botanic Gardens partnered with the exhibit because it closely matched their mission of tackling nature, education, conservation and art.
"So when we selected this exhibition, it was because we kind of matched on philosophy about using materials that don't then contribute to pollution and are sustainable," Cripps said.
The exhibit is open through Sept. 30 and is included in the general admission fee to the gardens.