Since global climate change has become one of the concerns that affect our daily lives and ecological problems call humanity to action. Art also has its share of the topic.
Many artists gave a striking answer by using waste as well as displaying them in city squares. In the middle of the 19th century, environmental movements started to find a meaningful place globally. That lead to the emergence of the concept of ecological art through ecological installations.
While most artists work on environmental artwork on materials found in nature, some have turned waste materials or garbage into art pieces. Furthermore, these ecological installations aim to provide awareness of climate change and environmental issues strikingly through metaphors. At the same time, they are stressing recycling and drawing attention to rapid consumerism. The artists use subjects to raise awareness in this field. We can continue by giving information about some of these installations
HOLOSCENES (Early Morning Opera)
Early Morning Opera designed the HOLOSCENES project. Its exhibition was in 2014 in Toronto. The artists who do their daily work in the water draining and filling an aquarium created the HOLOSCENES project. This process shows the effects of rising seas, floods, melting glaciers, and unusual storms on daily life (Fishman, 2020). The “drowning” metaphor installation achieved the ecological aspect. John & Marble Ringling Museum of Art Sarasota held the project in 2015. Also, it has met with the art enthusiasts same year at Florida MDC Live Arts Miami; London’s Burning in London, England in 2016; In 2017, The World Science Festival and Times Square Arts in Times Square, New York and most recently in 2018 at the Gold Coast Games in Brisbane, Australia.
Ice Watch (Olafur Eliasson)
Olafur Eliasson’s project is the presentation of 12 large ice floes taken from the Greenland ice sheet in the form of a clock in a crucial public area (Eliasson, 2015). With this artistic work, he raised awareness of climate change by presenting a direct, striking, and concrete experience of melting polar glaciers. Additionally, the first installation was in the Town Hall Square in Copenhagen in October 2014 to publish the UN IPCC’s 5th Climate Change Assessment Report. Subsequently, the second installation was held at Place du Panthéon in Paris on the UN Climate Conference COP21 in December 2015. The third of the Ice-Watch presented at two different London locations between 11 December 2018 and 2 January 2019.
Skyscraper (STUDIOKCA)
Skyscraper consists of 5 tons of waste plastic in the Pacific Ocean. The size of this whale structure is 38 feet tall. The artist’s primary goal has been to raise awareness of the damage done by the 150 million tons of waste currently found in the oceans (David, 2018). Likewise, the work exhibited at the Bruges Triennial in 2018 went through many stages during its creation process. People collect plastic waste from the ocean and then cleaned. Then, they create the giant whale profile, and the plastic collected was placed in this profile.
SOURCES
Susan Hoffman Fishman, “Revisiting HOLOSCENES During the Global Pandemic”, Artists and Climate Change, 2020
Olafur Eliasson, “Ice Watch,” olafureliasson.net, 2015
Eric David, “Skyscraper (The Bruges Whale) Draws Attention to the Oceans’ Pollution,” Yatzer, 2018
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