When I was looking at some eco artists I found a work done by the Eden Project near St Austell, Cornwall, UK. I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about it, but I thought the work was really interesting. The work is a polar bear sculpted from recycled plastic bags.
If you know anything about this work please let me know.
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Guerra De La Paz is a group of Cuban artists that use discarded clothing as there main material in there sculptures.
One project that I will be focusing on is their Tree sculptures.
As you can see they are clearly recycling material into their work. They are actively helping the environment, through one project at a time.
I couldn’t find too much information about them. If you know anymore feel free to share.
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On his site he perfectly explains the issue I have been talking about with recycling and how the inspired his project called “Drop”, in 2007.
“Drinking mineral water has become such an integral part of contemporary culture. There are many brands available and which brand you drink has become a lifestyle statement. One of the repercussions of this healthy drinking culture is the fact that the empty plastic water bottles are littering our landscapes and seas. Our landfill sites are being filled at an incredible rate with these plastic containers. Currently at airports we are not allowed to take water bottles through security checks and thousands of empty or half full bottles are confiscated. The water containers used in the work are donated and collected from Stansted Airport, London. This work focuses on the overlooked beauty and variety of these plastic water containers by concentrating on a small detail section, the base. The visual appearance of the plastic is slightly altered to produce a frosted glass quality. The first Drop chandelier was produced as a performance piece during Design Miami 2007.”
He has a lot more work on his site, go check it out.
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Pastic Bag Garden By Luzinterruptus
Art Group Luzinterruptus created an installation called “A Cloud of Bags Visit the Prado” outside The Prado Museum for 4 hours.They used 80 plastic bags each inflated by the wind were every single plastic bag had a light inside. This art intervention speaks to the problem of sustainability be illuminating the issue through art. These little bags of light in my opinion act as a metaphor for an idea described as a light bulbs shining; these illuminated bags are the light bulb ideas of recycling, that we need to find every way possible to recycle our material.
LIGHT UP YOUR LIFE, RECYCLE
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In many of my posts I have talked about recycling your plastic material; mostly talking about recycling your water bottles. I have been focusing on artists lately and have found an artists named Aurora Robson who creates sculptures out of plastic.
By Aurora Robson
Robson focuses on recycling so much that she actually welcomes people to send her “junk” material in the mail. She is essentially creating a recycling process of her own. She twists, cuts, reforms these pieces of plastic into abstract forms, lit by solar-powered LED lights to create these illuminated organic forms. Her works remind me of David Chihuly’s glass sculptures in its organic nature.
Here are some of her works:
This video is an interview with Aurora Robson describing her thoughts and practices of her art. Enjoy!
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We have seen many artists that have used there creative ability to turn a piece of art into a political message about environmentalism and sustainability. Now imagine an entire room that is filled with these beautiful messages. I wonder where I would begin if I had an exhibition to create.
I would need to find artists that focus on this topic, but who or whom. Would I want to focus on one point of sustainability or try and tackle a wide variety. How would I find or create work to go inside when I’m only a student. I could put out a call for artists or artworks in the area that would address the issue of sustainability or would I create a more informational exhibition or how about a mix of the both. In a sense the entire exhibition would be one message, one big fight to show the world about sustainability and how we can make simply adjustments to help keep this planet been.
and that’s where I need to start. The most important thing is finding out what my message will be. As my research has progressed I have found that this country like many others have an issue with waste and what to do with our waste whether be recycling or landfills.
All of the artists I have researched in some form of another have dealt with this very issue. And because this issue effects everyone in the world I believe that all can hear and where to start but on a university campus.
So how I’m I going to get people involved and what am I even going to show or illustrate. This is where my research of artists have helped. Steven Siegal and David Mach are two artists that I have talked about and used a similar way to portray a message of sustainability. One way I believe I could bring there ideas and my ideas together in a gallery is to collect as much recycled material on campus and showcase it the centre of the gallery. All of the collected recycled material would be “housed” in a net or some sort of walls that would draped down from the ceiling creating a “room” filled with all of the campuses recycled material. I believe this could visual showcase this issue of recycling and waste. It would show students the amount of material we go through daily that needs recycled. Now how would a “house” the material? I could use a net or some sort of clear material where you can see the amount of recycled products. I will need to do more research on this. I think something for me to keep in mind is using sustainable material for creating these walls.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
There is much more I need to think about, but this is a start.
If anyone has an ideas or suggestions about an art exhibition about sustainability please comment below.
Thank you,
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Everyone has read a newspaper at one point or another; whether you are reading the comics, the daily news or the sports you have picked up that paper and hopefully when finished recycled them. Every week or everyday a new issue of a newspaper comes out and we are informed on the events of the world, but little do we think of the amount of waste these newspapers create. We must be conscious of this issue. I know that thanks to technology we are afforded the ability to get some newspapers in an application on our phone, ereader, or tablet.
Artists have addressed this issue by using newspapers to create their art pieces to act as a process of recycling the material. Petter is a fine artist that works internationally creating 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional works from newspapers. She likes using the limited palette of black and white, which has been her main choice through most of her works. Her initial intension for using newspapers was the materials natural presentation of our daily lives. Petter has a “profound respect for this material,” she stated on her website that “I have never regarded it as ‘recycled’ or ‘trash.’” This comment struck me, she doesn’t “regard it as recycled,” well then what does she regard it as? I believe her work speaks to this. The material of her work is never “waste” or something that should be recycled and no longer used. She is not giving a second life to this newspaper, she views it as never being dead. A newspaper is what it is, regardless of how its being used and when its being used. This is a very different perspective taken on waste and recycling that I have taken. Recycling something doesn’t mean the object is useless or waste or dead and there are many processes for recycling materials.
Here’s some examples of Gugger Petter:
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“We are the Landscape” – Steven Siegal
Steven Siegal is an American fine artist that uses recycled material and pre-consumer products such as, newspapers, crushed soda cans, shredded rubber to create his public art installations in our landscape. He “reinvents the role of sculpture for an eco-conscious planet… that reflects the deposit-and-decay cycle that underlines the making of the land.” Siegal has created these works all over the world in places like, Europe, Asia, and North America. His main objective is to create a conversation about the landscape and how our society is affecting it.
His sculptures act as interventions within our landscape, we have to stop and address the “elephant in the room” that is waste consumption. There is a subtly to some of his works, specifically the ones that blend into the landscape, that I believe parallels the concealed issue of waste within out society. As scene in previous blogs and articles I have read, it is very difficult for us to see the mass consumption and issue that is waste and landfills because its impossible to physically see it all at once, but just because we cannot see it doesn’t mean its there.
In a way his work is acting as a solution by recycling material to create something new. His first objective is to show the world its waste but his underline message provides a solution of recycling or some sort of waste management. As I have scene while researching this topic, there are plenty of solutions to tackle this issue, and it seems to all point back to recycling and how we discard or reuse materials.
“Sited Works” Series
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As I was cleaning the printmaking studio I work at last night, there was a water bottle that was left on a table so I emptied it and went to recycle it, but there was no recycling bin in the room so what did I do I threw it in the garbage.. opps But I know many people do the very same thing. I like to say that if there was a recycling bin in the room I would have recycled it, but thats a simple excuse. And the fact is there was a recycling bin right out the door of the room.
So why do people not recycle?
BUT
there are many reasons we should
RECYCLE
We need to start making space to recycle and make it a number one priority . We are constantly making up excuses for why we can’t when really the answers are pretty simple. If there isn’t a spot for you to recycle in our everyday life, then but in bin in there. Be proactive. We may not see the need to recycle right away, but it will help in the long run and for future generations. As seen perviously in the Mobro 4000, we are running out of room to store our waste therefore we must recycle.
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I have recently been researching the negative effects of recycling and I came across the Mobro 4000. The Mobro 4000 is a infamous barge that carried 3000 tons of New York Cities garbage up and down the coast lines trying to find somewhere to port. The Mexican Navy denied the entrance into its waters. along with various ports refused to dock the barge, therefore it return to Long Island.The barge was given a temporarily restraining order. hat created a controversial legal battle and debate about recycling and the waste in America. This issue sparked a campaign for a more environmentally friendly way of reducing our waste. I think this was quite embarrassing for the United States that they had to make such a large failed trip around the coast because they had no room to put their waste. but I believe it was something that needed to happen to show the world this ever-growing problem.
Mebro 4000
As was shown, we do not have room for all this waste our world is creating, we are running out of space for landfills and they are changing the landscape of our world.
I found out that a children’s book was created to illustrates the importance of “reducing, reusing, and recycling.”
Here Comes The Garbage Barge! BY Jonah Winters
Here’s a video that documents some of its travels:
“Because it carried what was to many essentially a pile of nothing, the “gar-barge” was, as it was called, became a magnet for symbols. As it trawled down the coast, the barge was, variously, a clarion call for recycling (before an inevitable backlash), a toxic ticking time-bomb, a signal of a country gone to waste, or the punchline of a joke, in that Barthesque, sad funny way. That’s all captured quite well in the first installment of Retro Report, a new documentary series in collaboration with the New York Times.”
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Its Not Easy Being Green 