EXHIBIT OVERVIEW: THE FORCES OF NATURE

As a human being that shares the planet with nearly eight billion people, it would be expected that we should take care of our home, the only one there is, but that is simply not the case. From mass deforestation, and pollution, to oil spills that sprawl across our blue oceans and coral reefs. Climate change has only been shown to be the one of the causes of the string of natural disasters that occurred these recent years, from wildfires to earthquakes to heavy storms. We are truly witnessing the greatest loss of our lives, potentially doing irreversible damage to our home planet. The idea behind this exhibit was to show that artists in different mediums from all over the world can all have a similar message and mindset. A message that says the future state of our world hangs in the balance.

Starting with Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch, and Andrew B. Colwill’s Polar Bear, Penguins and Airlifted. These artworks depicted the same horrific imagery of the glacier caps melting into the ocean, rendering these polar bears without any home. The same concept was used for Andrew B. Colwill’s Penguins, which depicted penguins on top of a car in the middle of a frozen wasteland. Last but not least, moving onto the next artist in the exhibit, Andrew Burns Colwil, born in Bristol, United Kingdom, Andrew Burns Colwil is a Fine Art artist with a twist, with a lot of his artworks referencing climate change. The works I selected from Colwil were Polar Bear, Penguins, and Airlifted. Andrew Colwil’s Airlifted depicts a cow being hooked onto a meat hook, suspended mid-air over a large pile of glass beer bottles. This expresses and frames the issue of climate change in the eyes of mass consumerism and capitalism. After Colwil’s artworks is none other than the infamous Banksy, a pseudonymous England-based street artist and political activist whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed. Starting with his Untitled mural “World on Fire“ this artwork connects to the narrative theme of climate change because this mural depicts an adult handing over a burning globe to a child, symbolizing that the older generations will leave behind an inhabitable planet for younger generations. His next artwork in the exhibit supports this idea, with his Untitled “Air Pollution“ mural depicts the small joy of a child experiencing snowfall for the first time, but in Banksy’s depiction, the snow is polluted due to the climate. Last, but not least of the Banksy artworks is his mural “I Don’t Believe in Global Warming“ because he once again he added his voice to the condemnation of the summit with one of his most rudimentary works yet. He spray-painted the words "I DON'T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING" in red capitals on a wall beside Regent's canal in Camden, north London, with the words disappearing under the water, resembling the rising sea levels. Then the last artist in the exhibit is, Nele Azevedo, a very talented Brazilian sculptor, visual artist and independent researcher who made her famous art installation called “Melting Men“ which depicted hundreds of ice sculptures in the shapes of human beings, all sitting down or standing up in a public setting, slowly melting away. This ties into the narrative theme of climate change by symbolizing that the increasing atmospheric temperature will melt the ice caps and eventually affect human population.