Motherlode: Solo Exhibition - Gallery Chitrak, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Solo Exhibition by Paul Johnson

This practice‑led research project explored the material and ecological rhythms of everyday life in Dhaka, focusing on the city’s informal waste ecosystems and the ways in which plastic circulates through its urban environment. During fieldwork in Dhaka, I gathered locally sourced plastic debris and reconfigured it using processes that echo geological formation. The resulting works—plastiglomergate‑inspired sculptural objects—fuse the immediacy of contemporary urban material culture with conceptual frameworks of Deep Time and mineral stratification.

The research was presented in an exhibition format at Gallery Chitrak, where the sculptural works functioned as speculative “future fossils,” prompting viewers to consider how human activity becomes embedded within ecological and geological processes. Through this presentation, the project contributed to ongoing debates surrounding the Anthropocene, environmental imaginaries, and the role of sculptural practice in visualising emergent relationships between culture, ecology and geological time.