December 12 is the first anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change outlining commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the spirit of Paris, the IFF’s exhibition Crochet Coral Reef: TOXIC SEAS continues at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. The show runs through January 22, 2017. Highlights include two bleached crochet reefs; a rare showing of The Midden (Margaret and Christine’s monumental personal-plastic-trash pile suspended in a fishing net as a commentary on our individual participation in oceanic trash); plus a site-specific, 30-foot long blackboard charting the chemistry of life and its entanglements with CO2 and plastic.

Photo credits: (Top) Crochet Coral Reef: TOXIC SEAS by Margaret and Christine Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring, at the Museum of Arts and Design, NY 2016. (Bottom) The Midden, four years worth of the Wertheim’s own domestic plastic trash suspended in a fishing net; in the background is the Chemical Blackboard with a timeline of organic chemistry and the rise of CO2. [Photos by Jenna Bascom courtesy of MAD.]