Nature/Despair
The Background
Climate change, negligence, and ignorance constantly impact the environments in which we live. Landscapes can be ruined, destroyed and warped by what humans do.
Walking through parks and woodlands, litter can be found caught in trees or floating in ponds or streams. Plastic can be found in the nests and burrows of wildlife.
Extreme weather, such as heat or flooding, impacts and harms humans and wildlife.
These factors cause sadness and despair, with more needing to be done to care for the planet.
The Response
I wanted to create visuals to raise awareness of the devastation that occurs in the natural world.
Using a process known as scanography or Xerox art, I placed photographs of nature onto a flatbed scanner.
Whilst an image was copied, I moved it around on the scanner plate. This creates distortions and warping - with no output ever being the same way. This variation and difference highlight how humans do not fully know the impact of climate change on nature.
I kept most of the visuals in black-and-white to indicate the starkness of the subject.
Some of the visuals I turned into negatives and developed these using alternative photography processes including cyanotype and SolarFast. These visuals have a softer feel, and the colour represents nature being restored, looking like rivers flowing. I used this approach to demonstrate how we can help the natural world.
The Response - Continued
The visuals were included in outdoor pop-up exhibits. Placed in woodlands, parks, and natural spaces, the visuals were temporarily exhibited in a way to represent litter and destruction. The exhibits encouraged viewers to consider what can be done to save natural spaces.
The visuals in the exhibitions were carefully monitored and re-collected each day, so there was no negative impact on the environment.
