The Importance of Art in the Environmental Movement
By: Sanya Surani
Art is critical in everyday life, from architecture to music to digital media. What we consider art to be has shifted dramatically throughout centuries; however, its importance in educating the public about societal issues has remained vital. Often, artists focus on what they find meaningful, which directly reflects the societal tone of the time. Additionally, art provides critical commentary about how social issues impact our world.
By bringing significance to political issues, art allows new audiences to engage with serious problems, ranging from racism to sexual assault. This enables audiences to engage with complicated problems through an emotional medium rather than having heaps of information thrown at them in the form or articles or news stories. Art has historically played a vital role in societal change, primarily through protest art. Protest art played a large part in shifting minds and maintaining momentum during the Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil Rights Movement catapulted protest photography into the spotlight, showing images of crowds at protests and groups having sit-ins. These images ensured that the social movement maintained momentum and kept its participants hopeful and inspired for the future. These images quickly became part of popular culture and media at the time, allowing the movement to stay at the forefront of the news cycle.
The fast-paced news cycle is something I am sure we are all familiar with since, nowadays, it seems like every topic is “breaking news.” Art allows crucial issues to stay at the forefront creatively since they are memorable and displayed in the public eye. These days outstanding art is available in digital media, and public art pieces can be easily accessible.
A topic that has remained at the forefront of societal issues is climate change. Though it remains a controversial topic politically, art can bridge that gap for people who may not understand the science behind climate change. By visually depicting the impacts of climate change, artists can connect with mainstream audiences to demonstrate the scale of the problem.
Many unique environmental art pieces have contributed to the climate change art movement by showcasing different aspects of the issue. From traditional art pieces to performative art, artists keep climate change relevant by displaying the issue through a creative lens.
For example, environmental activists and the team behind the Plastiki created a boat out of 12,500 plastic bottles. They sailed it from San Francisco to Sydney to raise awareness for the large number of single-use plastics flowing into the ocean yearly. After this successful attempt at creative activism, the team has branched out into creating camps teaching others about plastic pollution and encouraging the public to take the pledge against single-use plastics.
“Image of the Plastiki.” The Plastiki, https://theplastiki.com/. Accessed 21 July 2022.
Plastic pollution is just one of the ways that humans have been harming Earth’s ecosystems. Artists have also drawn attention to other related matters. One topic often discussed in environmental art is overconsumption, and for a good reason. Did you know Amazon sold more than 100,000 items per minute during Prime Day 2022?!
Rather than spit out facts about how plastic pollution is killing marine wildlife, the creators of the Plastiki demonstrated how single-use plastic doesn’t necessarily have to be single-use. Everything is reusable if you are creative enough, and reusing plastics reduces ocean pollution and the greenhouse gases needed to manufacture plastic bottles or bags.
Gavin Turk is a conceptual artist who focuses on overconsumption through the lens of disposables. His works showcase how much trash we produce as a society to highlight how easily we can recycle everyday objects. His piece, Pile, uses simple trash bags to highlight the harsh realities of mass production and mass consumption.
Turk, Gavin. “Pile.” RiseArt, 2004, https://www.riseart.com/article/2485/9-artists-confronting-climate-change. Accessed 21 July 2022.
Visual art is just one of many mediums artists use to convey information about social movements. Music, theater, and even digital media play a role since the goal is to inform as many people as possible. For example, the theater has been used to critique social issues; Rent, the famous Broadway musical, offers social criticism of the stigma and lack of action surrounding AIDS. Similarly, these days, environmental media has become a pivotal part of the ecological movement.
Ecologic’s founder (Rozina Kanchwala) wrote a climate change play called Love in the Time of Climate Change, which focuses on how climate change can impact various aspects of our lives, even the dating scene. The play focuses on the main character’s complicated dating life as she navigates relationships while suffering through climate despair. Combining comedic elements, such as strange dates, with information about climate change and how to effectively take action, the play demonstrates how you can simultaneously be entertaining while educating about an important social issue.
In the end, that’s the point of societal art: to learn and to be inspired. These days when everything is “breaking news,” and every issue is the most important one to tackle, it’s hard to connect with any problem, let alone try to learn about it. Art can help massive topics become more approachable and allow people to learn through a creative medium. Rather than spitting information at you, you can be entertained and inspired, learn about an issue, form your opinion, and determine how you can engage with the matter.
I could have just listed facts about climate change and the environmental crisis throughout this article, but instead, I decided to showcase some artistic expressions of the challenge. We often don’t realize the impact that art has on our lives, but if you would like to experience some thought-provoking art, then let us officially invite you to our upcoming Eco.Art event.
If you’re an artist with an environmental message you’d like to share, please take a look at our artist submission form here.
If you’re an art lover, check out our Virtual Art Gallery and Auction, which will be live from August 21 - September 21, 2022.
More information is here: https://www.ecologicprograms.org/ecoart-fundraiser