Metamorphoses of Plastics – The Reality and the Multiple Approaches to a Material (MoPRA) is an interdisciplinary project that aims to promote the debate on the different dimensions of plastics and their uses in society and to develop activities that allow a better understanding of the tensions and contradictions of this class of materials indispensable to contemporary life.

The term "plastic" encompasses a wide variety of substances, with multiple properties, uses, capacities, and costs, whose technical and economic qualities have been shaped by political, social, and cultural dynamics.

The interaction of different social actors – inventors, entrepreneurs, financiers, regulators, opinion leaders, researchers, designers, and consumers – has established the place that plastics occupy in the world.

With the rise of consumption in the twentieth century, the replacement of scarcer, more expensive, or more difficult-to-work materials with plastic became central to industrial economies. Polymer chemistry and technology have allowed the use of cheap sources such as coal and oil to reduce demand, from ivory, leather, exotic woods to scarce minerals.

However, plastics also represent an environmental paradox, and hence, the MoPRA project aims to create strategies for their safeguarding, communication, and promotion of balanced and historically informed debates.