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Ken Yonetani is a Japanese artist resident in Australia. He explores themes of fragility and consumerism in the context of climate change. Recent works have focussed on the Great Barrier Reef, including an installation that showed at the 53rd Venice biennale, where models served cake at 1pm every day, cake in the form of coral. The pollution of the Great Barrier Reef by sugar cane plantations is only one connection made explicit in this provoking and beautiful installation, all made of sugar.
A project of the RSA and Canon Europe, the WEEE man is made up of all the electronic waste that one typical UK person generates in a lifetime, from fridges to stereos to stove-tops. Created to illustrate and communicate the purposes of the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Products Directive, the WEEE man first appeared along the Thames in London in 2006, and was supported by Canon Europe. A fabulous visualisation feat, the WEEE man is an excellent example of the power of art to communicate the impacts of individual consumer choices, and generate support for legislation to address the need to recycle.
Artists Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang have been collecting plastic washed up on their local North Californian beach since 1999 and making it to art in an ongoing project called Beach Plastic. Their plastic collages and installations are photographed and bound into art books – pictured here is a stunning collection of Kraft cheese dip sticks! The Pacific Ocean alone is polluted with about 100 million tons of floating trash, 80-percent of which came from land-based sources. Through their consistent efforts, the pair are now experts on ocean pollution, and find hope through the communication of the impacts of a throw-away society that comes from their work.
Gyre, by Chris Jordan (depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic from the Pacific Ocean)
Depicting the scale of mass human consumption in his series of photos ‘Running the Numbers I and II’ Chris Jordan stretches our ability to conceive of this mad reality. More sculptural than photographic, the work is meticulous and the results poetic and startling. His ability to elevate statistics to fine art is a unique and powerful reminder of the continuing relevance of art in communicating the impact we are having on the planet.
The Secret Life of Things was a series of animations, commissioned by EPA Victoria and company Eco Innovators, for the State of Design festival 2010 in Melbourne, communicating the life-cycle impacts of common products. Life-pscyclology – the secret life of the phone is one of them. Created by Layla Acaroglu, it depicts a phone going to therapy to try and discover why he’s been abadoned and how he can emark on a new life – based on the valuable materials contained within him. Very cute!