GREAT ENVIRONMENTAL ARTWORKS
By Camilla Jensen
Many great artists are implementing more environmentally friendly methods of creating art into their practices, both to raise awareness for the protection of nature and to generally have a more sustainable practice. Fortunately, the protection of the environment is taking center stage in many artworks, and these three examples show how we can use art for the betterment of the environment in impactful ways.
Mel Chin, an American conceptual artist, started Revival Field in 1990 in Minnesota, which merges art and environmental science. It uses hyperaccumulator plants to remove toxic heavy metals from the soil, transforming the site into a living sculpture while contributing to ecological restoration. She was able to create a solution to the damage done by hazardous waste landfills through art, making the surrounding land more sustainable and showing how art can not only bring awareness to environmental issues, but help solve them as well. It is an important reminder that although both are important, action is more crucial than awareness, and action can be taken in unexpected ways.
Olafur Eliasson is an Icelandic-Danish artist who, in 2014, began his Ice Watch project that sees him installing large blocks of glacial ice in urban spaces such as Paris and London. There, they gradually melt, symbolizing the tangible effects of climate change. It brings the distant reality of global warming to the everyday lives of people in major cities, urging immediate action to address environmental degradation and the climate crisis. This piece is a powerful statement on how our actions in urban cities have affected the world as a whole. By being visually jarring but also easy to see consequences of, it makes it impossible for us to avoid the truth of our future if we do not make a change to how we treat our planet.
Agnes Denes, a pioneering figure in the land art movement, created Wheatfield – A Confrontation in 1982, by planting two acres of wheat on a landfill in Lower Manhattan. By juxtaposing a field of golden wheat against New York’s financial district, she challenged the city’s focus on economic growth at the expense of nature. Denes’ work comments on the sustainability of human civilization and our relationship with the environment, questions the priorities of urban development, and highlights the disconnect between modern society and the natural world. Contrasting nature with urban spaces, especially ones like a golden field of wheat and the skyscrapers of New York, she makes it clear what is being lost due to our often selfish need to expand. Land is finite, and if we get to a point where there is none left, we will make it nearly impossible to come back from it.
Before Mel Chin paragraph:
Caption: Mel Chin, Revival Field, 1990, Minnesota
Cover image and before Olafur Eliasson paragraph:
Caption: Olafur Eliasson, Ice Watch, 2014, London
Before Agnes Denes paragraph:
Caption: Agnes Denes, Wheatfield – A Confrontation, 1982, New York