What immediately comes to mind when I think about the future is the earth’s well being. I think about global warming, pollution, litter, the rapid growth of the human population, animals and their environment, and some peoples ignorant understanding of the very real problems going on around us.
Sustainable development-development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
“What we throw away from our homes ends up in theirs.”
“Wake up to the need of action.”
I wanted to target one specific area which was ‘Plastic Pollution’. A lot of what I see on social media is the effect plastic pollution has on animals. I usually see a huge variety of animals caught and trapped in some form of plastic, unable to move. I wanted to focus on this for my project as we need to control this ever growing problem in order to have a sustainable future.
This developed into thinking of different ways in which I could communicate this. I think that some people don’t realise the horrifying extent to what is going on as we don’t see the other end of the spectrum with our own eyes. A lot of people probably see the odd video here and there on their social media feed, sympathise, then carry on scrolling and do nothing about it as it isn’t effecting them directly. An animals restriction to life due to plastic pollution stuck in my mind, I really wanted people to understand what its like. Therefore I wanted to put us in their shoes, I wanted to somehow portray the restriction of a human’s movement so people get a better understanding of the reality.
This was represented in the form of photographs taken in my bathroom sink. I mainly thought of marine life when thinking about the general idea for this project. Animals trapped in fishing net is something I come across often, therefore I represented this with netting that you usually find around fruits when in the supermarket. The outcome of the photos is quite distressing, in my opinion, I think that the darkness of the water brings an eerie atmosphere to the photo, as it brings depth into the piece and gives a sense of the unknown. The disturbance of the water also brings the meaning and the photo together, it suggests that something is in distress. The top photo is quite powerful, the hand looks as though it is asking for help, as though it needs you to pull it out the water. The contrast between the dark water and florescent plastic brings attention to the piece, the pop of colour seems unnatural, which it is, as plastic shouldn’t belong in animals habitats.
*What I came across one day.*
I wanted to see how other people communicate the message of how bad plastic pollution is. David Attenborough came to mind when thinking about this and his BBC series called Blue Planet. I started to look into how they present the problem. They usually made an emotional connection between the animals and the audience so that the audience sympathise with the creatures more. I took this into consideration but put a twist on it with my own work. Feeling is one thing that I need to surface when doing my art. I thought about how scared and trapped animals must feel when caught in plastic and I tried to communicate this fear into my art. With the background of the Paintings I produced, I kept referring to the disturbance of the water I had captured in my photographs. I wanted to create a confusing and disturbing atmosphere by using harsh colours and mark making in my paintings which I think I managed to achieve.
This is a sculpture I created using chicken wire and plastic that I had found. All of the material was recycled. It represents our plastic polluted world, and the ugly reality of consumerism.
^my research into artists and plastic pollution.Photos that I find powerful- https://pin.it/eeksj5g3rjviei
Agnes Kindt 