Environmental consciousness includes people with the same set of values. People who care about natural habitats and use renewable resources. Humans can act for the sake of nature and can put others ahead of themselves. But what about the people who do not act for the planet's best interests? Can art be part of the change?
"The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to “be active”, to “participate”, to mask the Nothingness of what goes on" — Slavoj Zizek
And here is how you responded to the theme …
Artist: Lorraine Cleary
Instagram: @lorraineclearystudio
Description: Climate, Sustainability & Responsibility are important themes explored in many art practices, but what is also important is how we as artists take responsibility for our approach to materials. In my work materials are a hugely important aspect and are carefully chosen for each piece. I try to maintain a sustainable art practice; where recycling & upcycling have become an integral part of how I work, Vessels of Strength is made completely from upcycled fabric sourced from used women's clothing. Recycling materials and using them to communicate themes of injustice has become central to my working methodology.
Artist: Tessa Teixeira
Instagram: @tessateixeira.artpractice
Description: Biologist David George Haskell writes.. 'We are all - trees, humans, insects, birds, bacteria - pluralities. Life is embodied network. These living networks are not places of omnibenevolent oneness. Instead they are where ecological and evolutionary tensions between cooperation and conflict are negotiated and resolved.’ Natures Apothecary and Islands of Fertility are inspired by Biologist Haskell’s statement and responds to scientific secondary research around increased temperatures, driven largely by fossil fuel extraction and the use of single use plastic that is choking our environment. We are living in the ‘Anthropocene’ age, where human activity dominates and tries to control nature, losing sight as field ecologist Dr Stephen Woodley suggests…’We are part of nature and we do not exist without it … if biodiversity disappears, so do people’
Artist: Chris Avis / Vicky Hawkins collaboration
Instagram: @vickymhawkins
Watch the video
Description: Two artists from very different disciplines, one based in paint and materials, the other working with digital media collaborated to make Arch Angels, a seven-minute video. ‘We wanted to raise public awareness of the threat to urban birds, specifically pigeons who are so often hated by the public. The video asks us to reflect on our thoughtless destruction of species as a symptom of how badly we care for our planet and its many struggling human inhabitants. We found that many people have such a strong disapproving reaction to pigeons that could be a barrier to promoting the work. However, this negativity has been useful as it has driven active discussion and argument. We aim to link into relevant organisations to promote the message but have not been successful with this yet. '
Artist: Noelle Genevier
Instagram: @subliminal_haze
Description: This work looks at the disassociation being experienced between people and plants. Plants that were once a source of food, medicine, pigments, clothing etc have become marginalised or forgotten. Humans have set themselves apart from something to which they are an intrinsic part resulting in a disregard for nature's and therefore human's welfare. The rotating canvas with embedded collage is printed with indecipherable screen print which represents the blueprint of the world through which the plant collages are threaded with basketry, the back of the canvas is visible indicating the unseen forces and elements of the world.
Artist: Jill Letten
Instagram: @j.letten_art
Description: Being passionate about addressing the urgent and consequential nature of climate change through creative expression has not only helped me process such a heavy reality, but has also initiated a conversation with others about their thoughts, concerns, and perhaps apprehensions. The objective of this work was to depict the multifaceted concerns that are greatly affecting life as we know it but are not being addressed. These aim to promote reflection on capitalistic behaviour ingrained in the consumer mentality and act on it. At such an urgently critical moment in time the voices of consumers need to reign strong to demand companies and governments are held accountable and take action.
Artist: Trevor Healy
Instagram: @craftyleoart
DESCRIPTION: “Human Destruction” (2022). In response to the horrible poaching and deliberate destruction to wild animals by humans, I created this floor piece to represent the loss of these innocent majestic animals, This project contains two handmade ceramic horns with Ivory glaze, two handmade ceramic shotgun casings and ceramic pellets presented on a flat bed of earth clay on the floor. MEDIUM: Ceramic, glaze, earth soil
Artist: Fred Fabre
Instagram: @Drawlogia
Description: In this work, I am featuring a baby girl with the challenges she will be facing. I think that the direct link between resolving climate change and respecting human rights, which starts with gender equality, is crucial and desperately urgent.
Artist: Helen Birnbaum
Instagram: @helenbirnbaumceramics
Description: The installation, 2.5m x 2.5 m wide, consists of 130 ceramic hands each made individually. The hands suggest that this is a predicament that faces us all, and it is only through our diverse nations, skills and identities that we can bring this to an end.
Artist: Scapa Joe
Instagram: @scapajoe
Description: “Piccadilly Circus After Climate Change”. London has flooded and Piccadilly Circus is now a sanctuary for turtles which feed on sea grass when once buses travelled. An elephant swims past after escaping the zoo, whilst a polar bear has found dry land. Coral now adorn the once grubby urban streets and the warmer , rising oceans have brought tropical fish.
Artist: Geraldine Leahy
Instagram: @gleahyart
Description: My work is concerned with coastal erosion, specifically embedded objects in the sand which are the marks of a changing climate. Many of my paintings begin with a monoprint of found debris which strangely assumes organic characteristics during the painting process. I create intriguing pieces, reflecting the entanglement of natural and manmade materials on the coastline, which I hope will encourage viewers to consider how their actions can affect the environment.
Artist: Nerissa Cargill Thompson
Instagram: @nerissact @greenloopproject
Description: Flyde Council commissioned me to create an art trail to raise public awareness of plastic pollution on the Fylde coast. My mixed media sculptures were hosted by local businesses to promote the sustainable products and services they each offered and hopefully bring them new customers. The works highlighted bad habits and the legacy of plastic waste. Sanitary products and wet wipes are a particularly bad problem but one with easy alternatives.
Artist: Sophy King
DESCRIPTION: “The Whole of Recorded History Mark III”
The work sits on the floor, chalk drawings around it depict timelines between 3000BC and the present day. This preserved wood was discarded by a peat extraction company. They exhausted 5 meters depth of peat, reaching the layer of forest that existed c.3000BC. Around the tree, chalk drawings examine real, speculative and alternate timelines between then and now. The work examines how we got here and invites the viewer to imagine alternatives and to consider the shape of time and space.
Instagram: @sophykingart
Artist: Katie Karcheski
Instagram: @ktkfineart
Description: Planet Can is a series documenting elements of natural forms against the manmade, creating surreal objects the question the reality we live in today. Using unidentifiable substances on a common drinks can to create foreign objects that highlight the value in the everyday. This piece aims to challenge people's perception of value, art and humanity.
Artist: Katy Doncaster
Instagram: @katydoncaster
Description: These talismans are cast as a response to landscapes that are in danger of being lost. Each appears so ubiquitous; they're just always there. But new housing and roads are tearing up small woodlands; the drive for monocrop plantations to provide biofuel is putting vast tracts of land into industrial planting. We are losing our biodiversity; we are losing contact with nature. The Talismans are to remind us to care, to know that we need to keep connected with nature, with ourselves.
Artist: Rosalind Lowry
Instagram: @rosalindlowry
Description: Bandaged Planets, porcelain clay, 20cms diameter, 2022
Produced during a residency with the Royal Astronomical Society, Bandaged Planets focuses on the sticking plaster systems in place to protect the environment. The work is a tribute to the resilience of the earth up to this point.
Artist: Amy Jackson
Instagram: @thisisamyjackson
Description: The Alternative Art Trail was an interactive walk, ephemeral street art piece and a means of reconnecting with nature through mindfulness, where viewers could take a never-before-seen journey through London, remembering to pause and reflect. The artworld though it often pays homage to (or even utilises elements of nature in its creation) can also destroy, leaving a damaging impact on the world like any other commodity. This piece helps us consider both art and nature, in terms of impact, aesthetic, medium, fragility and value. Too often overlooked, these delicate reminders of nature are carefully curated - helping all of the trail’s travellers re-imagine a future world by simply noticing what is already there. Throughout the city hides a secret world of nature to explore. The walk asked the viewer to take powerful moments of mindful reflections, reflect upon splashes of colour and spot unexpected appearances by collages of moss.
Artist: Katrin Woelger
Instagram: @ana fagri
Description: The Biedermeier transcendence manifests itself in installations in nature with temporary performative interventions. So far there have been 3 coats installed in different places. They are installed and then never touched until they dissolve, or disappear. The process is documented. the 2nd coat had been stolen.
Artist: Aisling Edwards
Instagram: @aisling.edwards
Description: Revisiting Landscapes, Hayle (2020) considered themes of walking, time, space and distance as Aisling Edwards explored the effects of coastal erosion in Cornwall. Using found materials she created linear forms that dramatized the imprint of humankind on our landscape. Edwards intervened with the land to make short-term alterations that later dispersed and only traces remained. She considers an intervention to be a temporary adjustment, not permanently impacting on the topographies. For Edwards, permanence is achieved by documenting these sculptural interventions, preserving them into the future as evidence that they once existed within this space.
Artist: Lisa Reindorf
Website: www.lareindorf.com // Instagram: @reindorfstudio
Description: As an architect, artist and environmental activist, my work explores the interruption of natural patterns that occur when we built into natural ecosystems. Climate change has resulted in sea level rise, and construction along coastal areas puts the human habitat in harms way.
Artist: Blandine Martin
Instagram: @blandinem_art
Description: While in the park I have moved the work at different spaces to see how it blended with its surroundings . I noticed the other human interventions for example the dreadful plastic bag in the water which I didn’t not noticed straight away . So many kind of interventions .
