Art and Environmental Activism
I took AP Art History in tenth grade, and because of this, I would like to call myself an art historian. While I know this isn’t necessarily true in, say, the eyes of someone who has gone to college and spent years studying art, it’s true for me. Additionally, I have an immense fondness for the environment and giving nature a voice through art. I love the intersection of art and the environment.
For some, art is crucial towards fighting for environmental justice and change, to raise awareness about the injustices happening. There are many different types of art involving nature. Paintings of nature or humans’ relation to nature, land or Earth art, Sustainable art, Conceptual art, the list can go on.
Art that involves nature is transformative. The position of the sun that the artist decides to use- whether that be sunrise, sunset, or noon- can shift the entire feeling the painting gives off. Nature, I believe, can and should be experienced through art. It is just another mode in which nature exists.
The environmental art movement emerged in the 1960s. Some famous pioneers of this movement are Nils Udo, Jean-Max Albert, and Piotr Kowalsi- (although I had never heard these names before researching for this project, so how famous can they really be?). There are also some famous land arts, like Christo and Robert Smithson (who I do know from my former endeavors into AP Art History, for they created the famous Spiral Jetty). However, these latter artists have actually been criticized for their art creating ecological damage. This begs an important question on whether land art is sustainable or should be allowed. This question is one I am unsure of the answer to.
One form of environmental activism art that I find particularly powerful is the one that pays heed to consumerist culture. I love seeing artists who make art out of the trash they’ve found, or there is this one woman on instagram (Rebekah Bean Ripley) who created a video about the life journey of a plastic bag. The video ended with her walking on the beach and the plastic bag she had been following found its flock with a bunch of other bags on that beach. Powerful, right?
Agnes Dene, a Hungarian-born conceptual artist who lives in New York City was an early trailblazer for the environmental art movement. She was particularly interested in the human perception of natural cycles and stewardship. In May of 1982, a 2-acre wheat field was planted on a landfill in lower Manhattan- just two blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center. There, she planted, maintained, sewed by hand, a field of wheat for four months. As her website says, “Planting and harvesting a field of wheat on land worth $4.5 billion created a powerful paradox. Wheatfield was a symbol, a universal concept; it represented food, energy, commerce, world trade, and economics. It referred to mismanagement, waste, world hunger and ecological concerns. It called attention to our misplaced priorities.”
Nils-Udo, one of the aforementioned names above, is a German artist who works with, and in, nature. He began on traditional surfaces, but sought something deeper. When he moved to his home country, Bavaria, he started to plant creations. He uses natural materials to create site-specific installations which highlight the relationship between nature and humanity and the link between natural history. Udo also utilizes photography to capture the ephemeral and transitory art that he creates.
One of my friends, Jayden Preussner, is a wildlife photographer. Currently, he resides in Tampa, Florida. We actually met through our love of the environment. We were both on a trip to Costa Rica to care for wild animals in a rescue center! His photography is breath-taking. And, when he posts his photos on Instagram, he likes to include the name and some interesting facts about the wildlife. He is also featured as the photographer of some of the images on this blog, and might be interviewed later!
Personally, I have used this elective class, “Science, Society, and Social Justice” to create environmental activism art. For our project about the land being our teacher, I took the opportunity to use a canvas and show that there are many different ways for people to help the environment: whether that be in an Environmental Science class, in English, outside volunteering, creating fellowship, or otherwise. In the middle, I taped on fallen leaves from the Elder Oak that served the omnipresence that nature should have in our lives.
I hope that with whatever I do next, there will be room for art and environmental activism in it. This is something that is so powerful, that allows and needs creativity, and it can speak to all people across the world. Art is powerful, and I can only hope that artists will save our world. This blog post could be so much more, which is why for now it is only part 1. Thank you!
Sources:
“7 Environmental Artists Fighting for Change | Widewalls.” Www.widewalls.ch, www.widewalls.ch/magazine/environmental-artists/nils-udo.Accessed 18 December 2023.
Denes, Agnes. “Agnes Denes.” Agnesdenesstudio.com, 2019, www.agnesdenesstudio.com/works7.html. Accessed 18 December 2023.
“Nils-Udo.” Wikipedia, 3 May 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Udo. Accessed 18 December 2023.
“Artist/Naturalist Nils Udo.” Web.archive.org, 7 July 2010, web.archive.org/web/20100707075535/www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Nils_Udo.html. Accessed 18 December 2023.
This blog is part of a school project. It is 4th of 4 blog posts.
