Join us for the opening reception of Fossil Fuels: How Humans Commodified a Natural Resource, an art exhibition by 2024 UCSF Artist in Residence Ruth Tabancay.

The reception will take place on the main floor of the UCSF Kalmanovitz Library on the Parnassus Heights campus and will include an introduction to the exhibition and a conversation with the artist.

This thought-provoking exhibition examines the use of fossil fuels and their impact on the natural world. Through documents from the UCSF Industry Documents Library – including essays by CEOs of Big Oil companies and representatives of the plastics industry, federal legal documents, op-eds from print media, and academic research – Tabancay crafts a narrative that shows industry and economic practices that negatively impact humans and the environment with climate change as the backdrop.

As many know, hospitals generate vast amounts of waste, especially plastic. This reality has been a driving force behind the work featured in Tabancay's exhibition, which has been created using discarded plastic materials obtained from the UCSF medical center. The works reflect the consequences of human reliance on plastic and its impact on Earth’s native populations.

The Healthcare industry is the second-largest waste generator in the US after the food industry, producing more than 5 million tons of waste each year. Among them, 85% of the waste is non-infectious and ends up in landfills with only a small fraction being recycled and repurposed .

UCSF Sustainability website

Tabancay also explored the UCSF Library’s physical archives as part of her residency. As a UCSF School of Medicine graduate, she has firsthand experience observing and using modern medical instruments. She found the vintage medical artifacts and their histories compelling, incorporating them into her research.

The exhibition opening is available to UCSF ID badge holders, and admission is FREE. Ruth's exhibit will be on display through June 2026.

UCSF welcomes all participants to our events. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in this event because of a disability, please contact Dylan Romero at dylan.romero@ucsf.edu as soon as possible.

Questions?

Email dylan.romero@ucsf.edu if you have questions about this event.