Feast & Famine/Art & Activism

In the exhibition Feast and Famine there was a lot of projects that caught my attention. Each of the art projects tells a story on food, economics, body image, rape, and the environment. Each of the art work has a powerful meaning. There are two art works that connects to the project I am doing on the environment; first is a project by Willie Cole his work is called Clear Pool and another work by Mike Libby his work is called You Are My Sunshine. These two projects explain how a bee and a bottle can affect the environment.

Willie Cole Clear Pool this art project is made out of plastic of bottles

This art project is called Clear Pool and it’s made with many plastic bottles put together to represent a pool. It looks simple and it may not look very interesting; but it has a big message to it and it affects the environment. People drink water out of a plastic bottle because it is cheap it does not cost more than a dollar and people are already use to this norm. However, before the bottle water was invented people drank out of the tap and the people did not have pay to drink water; but then the bottle of water was invented and sold claiming that it comes from a natural spring. So now you have pay to drink water but before it never cost anything to drink out of a tap. People in the United States now discard 1,500 of bottles every second which is more that 30 billion of bottles every year (ADD LINK). However, the worst thing is that only 30% of bottle will be recycled and the rest will go to landfills and oceans. Plastic is harmful for the environment because of the chemicals it contains and that are release to the soil and oceans that cause serious harm to the species and it is a pollutant. Because of these toxic chemicals plastic cannot be burned or destroyed so it is complicated to recycle and I believe this is the message Willie Cole is trying to say. There should be an alternative to plastic.

Clear Pool art project shows how plastic bottles are harmful for the environment and the project I am doing is on the carbon footprint. The carbon footprint is a greenhouse gas which is carbon dioxide and human activates are responsible for this. These carbon footprints are burning of fuel, transportation, electricity, and emission. These activities are the cause of releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and if the more carbon is released the earth will be affected. This is why carbon dioxide is a pollutant because cars, planes, and the burning of fossil fuels release this gas.

Mike Libby  You Are My Sunshine a bee sculpture

You Are My Sunshine is a bee sculpture and it symbolizes how bees are important to the environment. However, people do not see it that way; they see them as pests and they got to have to get rid of it. However, bees are harmless insect they won’t attack unless they are provoked. They are like any other animal or insect they protect their territory. There are also people that fear bees and they will try to avoid it and try to find a way to get rid of them. But bees are not a nuances they help the environment. They pollinate plants which help plants grow and framers like bees because it helps their crops grow (ADD A LINK). Without the bees their will not be many plants; however, people that fear bees or see them as pests do not see how important they are to our environment. Bees do not have the longest lifespan and if a bee stings a person it is like suicide to them because they will die in a couple of minutes because when they sting the stinger is pulled out of their body and their guts are coming out.