eARTh Matters, June Steingart Gallery, Laney campus 2006
and Berkeley City College Sustainability Conference 2006
and Berkeley City College Sustainability Conference 2006
In keeping with the Chancellor’s new Greening policy and the Peralta Sustainability Initiative, this show brings attention to urgent environmental issues.
As an environmental art educator, I am proud and inspired by the sincerity, creativity and imagination of these provocative and often poetic efforts. Witnessing the transformation that takes place as students are enlightened and often impassioned, validates my belief in the relationship between creativity and survival.
I believe we have an innate desire to heal; with compassion and a creative spirit, we have the power and intelligence to reverse negative environmental impacts with positive solutions and hope for healthy survival.
I want to congratulate and thank my wonderful students for their hard work, talent and mostly for their caring and compassionate involvement. These students and their work in this class help to keep that hope for healthy survival alive.
Andrée Singer Thompson
Trash Babies, by Margot Wallston
We live in a society that values advancements in technology and applauds new products that make work faster and our lives easier. New synthetic materials and products appear on store shelves daily—enticing the consumer to buy and replace and buy some more. But what are the costs of living in a disposable world? We keep getting new stuff and more stuff, yet the old stuff isn’t disappearing. Why do we continue to allow ourselves to pretend not to see what a mess is piling up before our very eyes?
As an environmental educator engaging the public in wetland restoration along the shoreline of the SF Bay, I often look out over the last remaining marshes in our bay at what should be healthy habitat for a variety of wildlife. However, for every bird resting on a fragment of marshland in Oakland, there is also over five times as much trash: bits of Styrofoam, plastic straws, bottle caps, cigarette tips, chip bags, and used bottles of motor oil pepper the small stretch of marsh. I bring hundreds of volunteers throughout the year to clean up this very marsh, but the trash keeps coming back. This little stretch of marsh in Oakland is no different than many other places in the SF Bay area. Moreover, there are areas in distant oceans where trash from around the world converges and amasses for miles in every direction. News reports abound of animals who are ensnared in floating trash, or who die of starvation with bellies full of indigestible garbage. The human animal may become the biggest victim of accumulating pollution, and yet, there is a disconnect between this disgusting truth and our daily actions. Even here on Laney Campus, where brilliant white egrets call attention to our proximity to the estuary, litter is abundant.
Education is the key to behavior change. My “Trash BAYbies” are a new kind of educational tool, presenting a more accurate version of reality. As unwanted discards, salvaged from the shelves of secondhand stores, they are born of the same consumerism that they are now combating. For decades, children have learned to love and care for wild animals by visiting zoos or by owning a cute, stuffed doll replica of a wild animal that never leaves their side. Yet, how accurate a portrayal is the soft brown monkey that never has to find food to eat, has no predators, and lives in the warmth of a child’s bed? Even the animals in the zoo show us little of the challenges today’s wild animals face in order to survive. “Trash BAYbies” reveal what has previously been concealed and ignored. They maintain the appeal of traditional stuffed animals, but they simultaneously insist that the viewer address the uncomfortable and the ugly. They are the future of toys, teaching environmental ethics and encouraging adults and children alike to accept the responsibility to create a healthier world.
If you are interested in sharing a Trash BAYby with the rest of the world or if you would like more information about my art, please contact me at margot@oxhouse.org.
We live in a society that values advancements in technology and applauds new products that make work faster and our lives easier. New synthetic materials and products appear on store shelves daily—enticing the consumer to buy and replace and buy some more. But what are the costs of living in a disposable world? We keep getting new stuff and more stuff, yet the old stuff isn’t disappearing. Why do we continue to allow ourselves to pretend not to see what a mess is piling up before our very eyes?
As an environmental educator engaging the public in wetland restoration along the shoreline of the SF Bay, I often look out over the last remaining marshes in our bay at what should be healthy habitat for a variety of wildlife. However, for every bird resting on a fragment of marshland in Oakland, there is also over five times as much trash: bits of Styrofoam, plastic straws, bottle caps, cigarette tips, chip bags, and used bottles of motor oil pepper the small stretch of marsh. I bring hundreds of volunteers throughout the year to clean up this very marsh, but the trash keeps coming back. This little stretch of marsh in Oakland is no different than many other places in the SF Bay area. Moreover, there are areas in distant oceans where trash from around the world converges and amasses for miles in every direction. News reports abound of animals who are ensnared in floating trash, or who die of starvation with bellies full of indigestible garbage. The human animal may become the biggest victim of accumulating pollution, and yet, there is a disconnect between this disgusting truth and our daily actions. Even here on Laney Campus, where brilliant white egrets call attention to our proximity to the estuary, litter is abundant.
Education is the key to behavior change. My “Trash BAYbies” are a new kind of educational tool, presenting a more accurate version of reality. As unwanted discards, salvaged from the shelves of secondhand stores, they are born of the same consumerism that they are now combating. For decades, children have learned to love and care for wild animals by visiting zoos or by owning a cute, stuffed doll replica of a wild animal that never leaves their side. Yet, how accurate a portrayal is the soft brown monkey that never has to find food to eat, has no predators, and lives in the warmth of a child’s bed? Even the animals in the zoo show us little of the challenges today’s wild animals face in order to survive. “Trash BAYbies” reveal what has previously been concealed and ignored. They maintain the appeal of traditional stuffed animals, but they simultaneously insist that the viewer address the uncomfortable and the ugly. They are the future of toys, teaching environmental ethics and encouraging adults and children alike to accept the responsibility to create a healthier world.
If you are interested in sharing a Trash BAYby with the rest of the world or if you would like more information about my art, please contact me at margot@oxhouse.org.
Voyage of a Plastic Bottle: video, by Christian Jusinski
Penguins by Anthony Grimes
Sew What? by Evan Lovett-Harris and Maha
They gave free sewing lessons and materials to anyone who was interested.
10 Things I can do by Kyeong Min Yu and Selam Minaye
Project Iceberg by Phoebe Ackley
Untidaled by Paul D'Andrea
Can only God make a tree? by Robin Bishop
Plastic Kills by Rita Bland
Wasteless Waste by Alita Line
My Backyard by Jennifer Adair Stejskal
Credits:
We would like to thank
Susan Leibovitz Steinman, for her curatorial and critical expertise, time and support;
Anthony Grimes, for his invaluable assistance with the installation;
The eco art students for making and selling handmade items to raise funds for the conference and to help fund this show;
Nicky Gonzales Yuen, Jack Ian Lin and the Peralta Sustainability Initiative for helping fund our attendance at the Bioneers’ Conference.
Note. In exchange for the Peralta Grant, students will give lectures in various classes about the new Recycling Program coming to Peralta in the spring (2011), about Bioneers and other eco issues such as global warming and conservation.
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