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"Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact."
- William S. Burroughs
We've been promised hope and change but it still feels like shock and awe.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
- Albert Einstein
The planet is in social, financial, cultural, and environmental crisis. We need a new way of thinking.
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
- Pablo Picasso
Maybe it's time we tap into our inner child-artist and try some more creative and open-minded approaches like, as a first step, using green art to convey the urgency without the ideology.
WATCH VIDEO: G-Word Online Clips: High Water Line
But...what the hell is green art?
The gang at Eco-Art.org offers this list of how environmental artists often work:
- Artists interpret nature, creating artworks to inform us about nature and its processes, or about environmental problems we face
- Artists interact with environmental forces, creating artworks affected or powered by wind, water, lightning, even earthquakes
- Artists re-envision our relationship to nature, proposing through their work new ways for us to co-exist with our environment
- Artists reclaim and remediate damaged environments, restoring nature in artistic and often aesthetic ways
Sounds a lot better than relying on corporate-funded politicians, huh? Well, what are we waiting for?
10 Ways to Appreciate and Create Eco-Art
Get Inspired:
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| www.oxfam.org.uk/jamiehewlett |
1. Gorillaz Artist
Animator Jamie Hewlett visited Char Atra, an island of seven towns and 10,000 people in the middle of the Ganges River. This area of Bangladesh is experiencing serious flooding due to climate change. Hewlett's paintings--depicting the daily life of the people who live there--are designed to give viewers a more tangible way to grasp the human impact of climate change.
2. Ice Art
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| Rosa Merk/WWF |
To coincide with the release of a major report on Arctic warming by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Arctic Feedbacks: The Impact on Global Climate Change, the WWF asked Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo to create 1,000 ice sculptures that would be allowed to melt under the Berlin sun as symbols of the effects of climate change. The sculptures began melting in 30 minutes.
3. Kenyan Artists Do a Flip-Flop
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| Camps International LTD |
When Camp International collected over 200 bags of litter (including over 7000 flip-flops) during beach cleanups by students in Kenya, the Camp Kenya School Team Expedition worked with local artists to create a life size whale shark made out entirely of the recycled flip-flops. They chose a whale shark (a.k.a. the world's largest fish) because of the danger posed to them by drift nets used by fisherman off the Kenyan coast.
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| Courtesy of Uri Eliaz |
Jaffa-based artist Uri Eliaz has not only created a small village of sculptures using found objects he's collected at sea, but he also paints on what he calls "green canvas." This means old doors and lids from large canisters and delivery bags bought from the German postal authority.
Get Busy:
9. Craftivism
10. Remember the words of Vincent van Gogh: "I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
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