Everyone knows crude oil comes from dead dinosaurs. This is a scientifically incorrect idea** that became widely familiar through mid-century popular culture, where it can be traced back to a Sinclair Oil advertising campaign in the 1960s featuring giant dinosaur sculptures made from newly developed fiberglass plastic touring the U.S.
Picking up on the depiction of dinosaurs in media and marketing, and on the fact that there is still a great deal of speculation about what they actually looked like, Mara Olschowka painted a series of watercolors on paper showing dinosaurs and ice.
The techno-optimistic promises of GFK (Glasfaserverstärkter Kunststoff) vanished over the years and despite its un-recyclable nature, this material still finds a wide range of applications from blades of wind turbines to waterslides. The furniture series (bench, stool, and frames) attempts to reorient the “Material of the Future” toward its current single-use industrial application and inevitable incineration.
** Petroleum usually forms from ancient microscopic marine life like plankton and algae that were buried, heated, and transformed over millions of years.
