Qatar Museums to sponsor 2021 Ro Plastic Prize
In line with its commitment to combine design excellence with environmental stewardship and sustainability, Qatar Museums (QM) announced yesterday that it is the official main partner of the 2021 Ro Plastic Prize – part of Ro Guiltless Plastic – the international initiative founded and curated by Milanese designer Rossana Orlandi.
The Prize aims to unite the design community to use plastic waste before it reaches waterways and develop the next generation of design: plastic reusing, recycling and upcycling. As the official main partner of the initiative, QM is the first donor to undertake sole sponsorship of the juried Prize, which will be presented on September 7, in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museo Scenza e Techologia Leonardo da Vinci for Milan Design Week.
QM Chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani has been named honorary president of the Prize’s international jury. The QM sponsorship was made public in conjunction with a webinar preview of Milan Design Week, organised on April 13. As part of the preview, HE Sheikha Al Mayassa announced QM’s commitment to the Prize.
Since the invention of plastic, more than 8bn metric tonnes of the material have been produced and more than half has been discarded or incinerated.
This number is constantly growing: more than 322mn metric tonnes are produced each year, and 8mn metric tonnes end up in our oceans. The Ro Plastic Prize, established in 2019, seeks creative entries in the categories of exemplary urban and public furniture design, innovative projects to help communities transform waste into wealth and inspiring communications campaigns.
HE Sheikha Al Mayassa said: “As museums are platforms for knowledge production and for inspiring individuals to find solutions to enhance the quality of their lives, it gives me great pleasure to announce Qatar Museums’ commitment to combine design excellence with environmental stewardship and sustainability in sponsoring the 2021 Ro Plastic Prize.
“I have had the privilege of working with the namesake of the Prize, the critical future thinker Rossana Orlandi, to support Doha’s creative economy with our exciting townhouse project in Msheireb Downtown Doha, the world’s newest and largest regenerative city.
“I am doubly excited that the winners of the 2021 Ro Plastic Prize will be exhibited in Qatar next year as part of our ever-growing commitment to sustainable programming.”
“I started all of this in 2018 with my daughter Nicoletta, moved out of the sheer desire to avoid feeling helpless in the face of the issue that the world was facing at that time: plastic,” Orlandi recalls.“I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I certainly knew what I didn’t want to do: simply be one more complaining voice.
“With passion, I dedicated myself to spreading the concept on which Guiltless Plastic is based: Plastic is not at fault. Instead, it is the abuse and misuse of it which have caused such profound environmental tragedy.
“Nicoletta and I began to involve the many designers who are friends of the Gallery as well as those who are involved in our work to demonstrate this idea by asking them to conceive a design with the reuse, recycle and upcycle of plastic in mind.
“We became increasingly passionate and excited and we wanted to do even more to involve as many people as possible.
“Enter the Ro Plastic Prize, an international award dedicated to creatives from all over the world with no age limit. The goal is to find, stimulate, and encourage the creation of design, social responsibility, and communication projects that could concretely become part of the solution to a real problem.
“Alongside me, for our Prize, I had organisations who supported it through their commitment, sharing the same emotion and passion that drove us from the beginning.
“Overwhelmed with enthusiasm for the thousands of submissions we have received since the first year which have come from five continents, and the global press coverage that the winners and most brilliant projects have received, Nicoletta and I are honoured to receive such a prestigious endorsement just three years after bringing the concept to life.
“The Official Partnership of QM and the patronage, as Honourary President of the International Jury of the Prize of HE Sheikha Al Mayassa, is a recognition beyond any that we could have dreamed. It gives us the strength and conviction to go forward with ever more commitment, responsibility, and emotion to be among those whose actions ensure a better future for us all.”
A commitment to sustainability and environmental education is integral to the work of QM. Permanent exhibitions at the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) offer dramatic and immersive introductions to the natural history of the Qatar peninsula and the ways in which culture, heritage and society have been shaped by human interaction with the natural world.
A new special exhibition at NMoQ, Seagrass Tales, Dugong Trails, is designed especially for children and their families, educating them about the community of shy marine mammals that has lived off the coast of Qatar for more than 7,500 years and now is under threat of extinction.
In conjunction with the exhibition, QM is offering for sale a limited edition “Dugong Banquette” chair — made up of a herd of plush, stuffed toy dugongs — designed by Brazil’s Estudio Campana, with all proceeds earmarked for the preservation of marine life. The Qatar Children’s Museum, now under development, is similarly committed to teaching about sustainability, with interactive displays designed to encourage children to become responsible stewards of the environment.
In another recent QM commission, Qatari designer Wit Noiz created a statement “Bag-It Abaya,” using 327 single-use plastic bags collected and upcycled from clean-ups on the outskirts of Doha. In an example of how thinking about waste reduction is becoming the norm for young Qatari fashion designers, the bags were fused together to create a wearable fabric.
QM’s hub for innovation and entrepreneurship in fashion and design, M7, is a 29,000sq m (312,000sq ft) facility in the heart of Msheireb Downtown Doha, a mixed-use development that is reviving the city’s historic core as a sustainable live-work neighbourhood.
Helping to train aspiring entrepreneurs in creative fields, cultivate their talent through mentorships and advance their careers, especially in design and fashion, M7 also sparks creativity in people of all ages and backgrounds through exhibitions, performances, films, educational programmes and public discussions, with links to leading creative professionals from around the world.