Sustainable Change : Recycling Strategies in Contemporary Art Practice (original) (raw)

The Language of Recycled Art: Theories and Frameworks

Recycled art represents a transformative approach to creativity, where discarded materials are reimagined into meaningful artistic expressions. This innovative practice challenges traditional notions of artistic value and sustainability, offering a unique perspective on contemporary art. By utilizing waste materials, artists reduce environmental impact while conveying powerful social and environmental messages. This essay explores recycled art through the lens of philosophical theories and mathematical frameworks. We examine how different art forms, core concepts, and materials interact, influencing the creation and interpretation of recycled art. Understanding the hierarchical structure governing recycled art is crucial for appreciating how different permutations produce unique artistic outcomes. Drawing on the works of Paul Crowther, Nelson Goodman, John Dewey, Arthur Danto, and Lucy Lippard, we delve into the theoretical underpinnings that enhance our understanding of recycled art. Each philosopher offers a unique perspective: Crowther's emphasis on aesthetic embodiment, Goodman's theory of symbols, Dewey's concept of art as experience, Danto's notion of the artworld, and Lippard's idea of dematerialization. These insights provide a robust framework for analyzing recycled art. We will discuss the operational subcategories of recycled art-Inspiration, Waste Material Collection, Design, Assembly, and Impact-using case studies of artists such as Vic Muniz, El Anatsui, Nick Cave, Gillian Lowndes, Wangechi Mutu, and Haroshi. These examples illustrate the diverse and impactful artworks that arise from different combinations of art forms, concepts, and materials. Ultimately, this essay highlights the significance of recycled art in the contemporary art world. By promoting sustainability and challenging societal norms, recycled art fosters ecological awareness and inspires innovative artistic practices. Through this exploration, we aim to deepen the appreciation of recycled art and its potential to drive positive change in society.

Art and Environmentalist Practice

Column in _Capitalism, Nature, Socialism_ Those at the art/science/environment juncture face head-on the challenge of our century, attempting daily to be artists, activists, dialecticians, and scientific practitioners simultaneously. Their fellow travelers are already on board: art critics, robot designers, amateur scientists, professional hackers, and post-disciplinary anarchists. The voices of red-green political ecologists belong in this engagement. The issues raised at this productive nexus call out for a reading that is simultaneously historical and red, ecological and feminist, critical and resistant, dialectical and materialist.

Contextualizing Ecological Restoration through Art

2011

While sustainability as an identifiable theme is both fashionable and pervasive, it is simply not substantive yet. It is meta-fiction written as cultural rebranding. The shift in plausibility needs to be witnessed in new perceptions of discarded and modified practices. In this paper I will propose that such a rich discourse can be created by using the pre-existing public and critical discourse mechanisms of art and observe this discourse transform into scientifically sound and effective design practices and projects through historical and current projects that present themselves as sustainable design, particularly paying attention to ecological restoration as one of the clearest examples of sustainable actions utilized by artists and designers currently and in historical precedents. I will discuss the historical (and political) trajectory of earth art, the recent work of Mel Chin as a key example of sustainable art activism and demonstrate through a global sampling of contemporary a...

Sustainable Art

2014

Sustainable art is an expression, which recently has been raised as an art term. Artists must consider and work with the environment around, engaging the people, the place and the community as a whole. This essay is to investigate how sustainable art becomes the foundation and the main denominator of a community. Through which aspects can sustainable art create a platform between the artist, the community and the environment? Art can be the reflection of our responsibility towards the local environment, the community and to the global environment. Sustainable art act as a community catalyst which forms interactions, connecting people, promoting human inspiration, ideas, feelings and experiences. Sustainable art is meant to take us into the future where art creativity and community will be embedded together, while through creative thinking, expression and participation can successfully move to sustainability, addressing the infinite social, economic and environmental challenges of the future that we cannot grasp. Community and art can effectively work together to promote awareness, communication and active participation about, in and for the environment. This effective composition, art and community, will be investigated and justified through the research of the theoretical aspects and the existing, progressive architectural examples.

Proposal for an issue on: Environmental Artistic Practices and Indigeneity: In(ter)ventions, Recycling, Sovereignty

CFP: Indigenous Art and Sovereignty Inspiring Change against Environmental Degradation, 2020

This special issue on “Environmental Artistic Practices and Indigeneity: In(ter)ventions, Recycling, Sovereignty" constitutes a body of creative contributions and academic articles addressing numerous forms of artistic practices of the Pacific Islands, Australia, French Guiana, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Inspired by Indigenous artists and writers whose practices and creativity help reimagine sustainable ways to inhabit the world, this introduction and our special issue interrogate contemporary environmental issues and the legacy of colonisation. They examine how Indigenous artists and writers, and artists working with Indigenous artists and communities, have for decades raised awareness about environmental issues, and encouraged people to regain their agency to struggle against environmental degradation and further destruction of Indigenous people’s societies and health. This introduction contextualises the concepts and Indigenous terms used by artists to express their vision of what a respectful relationship with the environment would be. It also offers readings of the beautiful literary and artistic creative contributions included in this issue. Environmental themes such as waste recycling, health issues, pollutants (mercury, POPs), and agricultural technics are discussed here in light of human and non-human life and agency. This issue also features a significant range of calls for action to better protect and restore ecosystems.

The Art of (Up)Recycling: How Plastic Debris Has Become a Matter of Art?

Advances in environmental and engineering research, 2021

Since 1907, when Bakelite was invented, there has been a dramatic rise in the daily usage of plastic-like materials. Today, its negative impacts are a part of scientific studies and public debates. Art and artists play a significant role in these discussions. They mediate between the specialist content and public awareness. This study is dedicated to the artworks of artists using plastic waste collected from the seashore. I organized their works into three lines, within which artists have different threads of plastic interference in the natural environment. The artists examine: 1. The future of a planet dominated by plastic products, like Bonita Ely's work from the Plasticus Progressus series that predict post-human existence. 2. The conceptual metaphors of contemporary culture, presented in Bounty, Pilfered by Pam Longobardi. It is an installation constructed from fishing debris. 3. The "nature-cultural" forms, i.e., organic constructions created by human interference and modified by nature, like Crochet Coral Reefs. The cooperation of volunteers with Margaret and Christine Wertheim produced this artwork. The artistic intervention creates new cultural and natural forms. This kind of artistic attitude towards waste is a formal and aesthetic innovation of various materials used in artistic practices. It also makes a significant commentary about the future of Earth. In a discussion about art producing unnecessary objects, recycling artistic material seems more ethical than using non-renewable materials obtained from natural sources.

Sustainability and Art Making

Sustainability: The Journal of Record, 2013

In this essay Andrea Olsen discusses the dialogue between the goals of sustainability practices and the skills of art making. She draws on examples from her daily walks on the Monterey Peninsula in California and 30 years of teaching dance and environmental studies at Middlebury College in Vermont. As visiting scholar at the Monterey Institute of International Studies spring semester 2013, Olsen reflects on the edge between all that we know from our heritage and studies and all there is to discover moment by moment-the dynamic ecotone of art and science. She considers that the creative process of art making gives students the confidence to visualize an idea and make it real-whether that's installing a complex public sculpture or saving an old-growth forest. Artistic discipline provides students with a practiced form and skills for expression so they avoid depression, aggression, and repression-the burnout and health issues that accompany challenging projects. Overall, Olsen concludes, the arts help you feel-sustaining a conservation ethic through responsiveness to both form and flow.

Ecoventions: Contemporary Art and the Environment (Institute of the Environment with the Freshman Clusters Program, UCLA, Spring 2007)

This seminar explores recent and contemporary art, primarily from within the United States, that critically engages landscape, ecology, and other environment-related sciences and politics. As such, it is conceived as an intersecting history of art and history of “the environment” in recent decades. We will investigate the extent to which visual artists, as important cultural producers, have addressed and responded to pressing environmental issues, including pollution, climate change, urban sprawl, biodiversity, ecological restoration, biotechnology, waste management, public health, alternative energies, and sustainable design. Rather than claiming to offer a comprehensive survey of environment- related aesthetic practices, the seminar is structured in thematic clusters and treats art as a communication device for studying the environment.

Beyond Canvas: Environmental Artists as Agents of Change

The human impact on the environment continues to grow. Throughout time artists have taken to exposing these devastations. Environmental art emerged in the 1960s when numerous artists started trailblazing the way for art intertwined with the earth, showcasing either the planet's destruction or its glory. Soon after, others began figuring out ways to turn waste into beauty or created art that physically tried to heal our world. This research paper will introduce the leading artists for each category and show how these essential artists have helped prevent climate change and continue to bring awareness to such a critical development.