Hyundai and Vitra Design Museum explore plastic's past, present and future in new exhibition

In partnership with Hyundai

Once touted as a novel material offering unprecedented malleability and versatility, plastic is steadily becoming one of the biggest threats to our natural environment. But it can be hard not to marvel at it when walking around a new exhibition currently on at Hyundai Motorstudio Busan in Korea’s second largest city. ‘Plastic: Remaking Our World’ looks at the past, present and future of this practical but problematic material, and explores how the Korean car manufacturer is addressing the issues surrounding its production and use.

Co-organised and developed by the Vitra Design Museum in Germany in collaboration with the V&A London and Dundee and Lisbon’s Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), the exhibition opens with an immersive, large-scale film installation by Asif Khan (who was also responsible for the exhibition’s design). Entitled Kalpa, it chronicles how, over a period of four billion years, microscopic life turns into oil, which is then used to produce all kinds of plastics, threatening the very natural environment that gave birth to this material. The message is clear. The current plastic crisis is a human-made one, and it is up to us humans to make it right.

The world’s third largest car manufacturer, Hyundai isn’t shy to admit that it’s part of the problem. ‘We think the interesting thing about having these exhibitions is that the Vitra Design Museum really highlights and explains these issues,’ says Sungwon Jee, senior vice president and global chief marketing officer at Hyundai Motor Company. ‘Now it’s time for global companies to address them. We feel a responsibility within the car industry to be part of the solution.’

Hyundai operates a total of seven studios globally – four in Korea and three outside the country. ‘Each studio has a different focus depending on its location,’ says Jee. ‘Our Busan studio is located within the city’s F1963 cultural complex, so our prime focus is on culture and design.’ Opened in 2021, and designed by Seoul-based studio 101 Architects, the predominantly glass-and-steel structure – which houses a large exhibition space, a small shop selling Hyundai merchandise, and a restaurant – has served as a hub for the company’s many cultural activities. ‘Plastic: Remaking Our World’ is the third exhibition presentation it has co-organised in collaboration with the Vitra Design Museum, following on from ‘Hello Robot’ in 2021 and ‘Home Stories’ in 2023.

The bulk of the show takes visitors on a journey from the first uses of natural plastics, such as horn and ivory, through the various semi- and fully-synthetic plastic variations. There are early design classics in Bakelite, like Isamu Noguchi’s 1930s ‘Hawkeye Measured Time’ clock or André Mounique’s 1945 foldable ‘Lucidus Bloc’ desk lamp. There is also a model of Monsanto’s ‘House of the Future’, a 1957 Disneyland attraction in which not only the house itself, but everything in it, was made of plastic, and a striking 1916 Charles Rennie Mackintosh ebonised wood smoker’s cabinet, which features bright yellow casein plastic as a surface inlay instead of a more traditional material such as mother-of-pearl.

Looking to the future, the exhibition features a large section dedicated to the development of new materials, including ones made of waste from the seafood industry, nut shells and coffee grounds. There is also clothing made from mycelium and edible packaging made from seaweed. Bioplastics, meanwhile, have been receiving a lot of global attention, but many of the proposed solutions are still at very early stages. ‘Talking to many experts in the field and industry, it’s clear there is not one single solution,’ says show curator Mea Hoffmann.

The exhibition has already shown at the Vitra Design Museum, V&A Dundee, MAAT and the National Museum of Singapore, but at the Busan show, visitors also get a unique close-up look at some of Hyundai’s initiatives to become less dependent on plastics.

For instance, much of the interiors of the company’s electric IONIQ range are made from eco-friendly materials developed to reduce the cars’ overall plastic footprint: flaxseed oil is used in the dyeing of the bio-leather seats; yarn spun from sugarcane and corn is used for armrests and headliners; and a paint, made from black pigment extracted from discarded tyres, is used on the lower bumpers and side mouldings.

There is a positive note, with the exhibition staging demonstrations of designer Dave Hakkens’ Precious Plastic project, where visitors have the opportunity to convert plastic bottle caps into spinning tops, rulers or coasters. Feeding caps into a machine and, just a few minutes later, seeing a totally new product is an important reminder than discarded plastic can be a resource, rather than waste. In the last section, Hyundai illustrates how it is developing technology to convert non-recyclable plastics into hydrogen, with plans for commercialisation. The exhibition not only highlights the challenges of plastic waste, but also offers innovative solutions. It’s a move in the right direction as Hyundai aims to foster in-depth discussions on plastic pollution, and present creative, eco-friendly solutions based on modern technologies.

‘Plastic: Remaking Our World’ is on show until 25 May 2025 at Hyundai Motorstudio Busan, South Korea, hyundai.com