CAN Celebrates the Cleveland debut of Everlasting Plastics with a recycling project

Few art events in Cleveland have provoked a level of energetic discussion comparable with what accompanied Everlasting Plastics, the exhibition commissioned by SPACES for US Pavilion at the 2023 Venice  Biennale Architettura.  It was an unprecedented accomplishment for any Ohio organization to win the international honor—especially one with a budget tiny by comparison to typical Venice Biennale commissioning organizations. Curated by SPACES former executive director Tizziana Baldenebro and Lauren Leving, and featuring artists of the Midwest including Cleveland-based Lauren Yeager, Everlasting Plastics comes home to SPACES this fall, opening with a reception September 26. It will be on view through January 17, 2026.

CAN celebrates the exhibition’s return with a plastic recycling project—re-using old CAN Triennial signage to create new magazine distribution boxes, for use by galleries and other organizations around the city to display CAN Journal. Since CAN Triennial 2022, Collective Arts Network staff has saved twenty coroplast signs that had been used on sandwich boards to identify venues for those exhibitions. With no specific plan, but recognizing the value of the raw material, the signs were simply kept in storage. In 2025, their time has come: the signs are in the process of being up-cycled into a series of distribution boxes for use by CAN partners to offer the magazine to the public.

The new distribution boxes will be made of the same type of material and in the same style as the original CAN distribution boxes, which were created more than a decade ago by sculptor / conceptual artist and Venice Biennale exhibitor Lauren Yeager. Many of those are still in service.

CAN has a long commitment to recycling, which has also included re-use of vinyl street banners from the CAN triennials in 2018 and 2022.  Those were cut and sewn into useful tote bags by Cleveland-based maker, Fuzzy Stitchworks.

Galleries that distribute CAN Journal to the public can request one of the upcycled distribution boxes by contacting James Negron via Development@CANjournal.org.