DIsposable Chopstick Sculptures Reflect on Environmental Price of Tradition

Humans use and astounding 100 billion disposable chopsticks a year. Although in Asian cultures chopsticks have been used for some 5000 years, the modern day disposable single use chopstick is contributing to deforestation and the destruction of natural forest habitats.

One artist, Donna Keiko Ozawa, creates sculptures that confront the massive environmental expense involved. In 1999 she undertook the original project in Japan, and in 2005 thanks to funding from the Columbia Foundation and the LEF Foundation (as well as the help of restaurants in the San Francisco Japantown area), did the follow up project, titled The Waribashi Project.


*Originally Posted on The Lohasian

Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival Honors Artists Who Create Beauty from the Discarded

November 11-17 the Ninth Annual Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival will bring together artists, and crafts people to show their talent in working with recycled objects.

The event features an art market, a fashion show and an art exhibit that put together produce an always innovative, sometimes outrageous event. This year the event promises to bring together over 40 artist and craft vendors selling unique one of a kind creations. On November 12th, at the El Museo Cultural the event will host a Trash Fashion and Costume competition, and throughout the event an art exhibit will feature pieces made from over 75% recycled or reused materials. If you are in the area, this is an event not to be missed-guaranteed to be both entertaining and illuminating.

The event is produced in cooperation with Keep Santa Fe Beautiful and their recycling efforts surrounding America Recycles 2007 and New Mexico Recycling Awareness Month.

For more go to: recyclesantafe.org

Originally posted on The Lohasian at www.thelohasian.com

Photographer Edward Burtynsky and His Documents of Crimes Against the Environment

The work of photographer Edward Burtynsky forces the viewer to confront, head on, the ravages of mindless environmental practices. His large format pieces do for the environment what photographs of the Nazi camps after the war, did for the rest of the world - they force the public to view the harshest realities and the painful vestiges of the actions of man.

The first video below is an expose on his work. The second, is a trailer for "Manufactured Landscapes" (D: Jennifer Baichwal) a feature documentary of his work and the crimes against the environment that he documents. The film is now available on DVD at Amazon.com.

*Original post on The Lohasian




Trailer - Manufactured Landscapes

Wind Powered Moving Creatures Designed by the Genius of Theo Jansen

There is simply no better word to describe the dutch artist Theo Jansen than "genius." The artist has spent the last 16 years creating kinetic sculptors that move on their own, propelled by either live or stored wind energy. He calls these creatures "Strandbeests"and they can be found walking the beaches of Holland. Made of recycled lemonade bottle and pipes amongst other materials, they are living metaphors for Eco-consciousness (the discarded truly being "reborn").

Wired News referred to Jansen as a "self-styled god." We don't disagree. Watch the video below (brought to you by courtesy of the TED conference) to witness this truly amazing mind at work.


Here is video of his presentation at the TED conference.

John Dahlsen and the Beauty of Forgotten Objects

Shipwreck (Found Driftwood)

Rope Print

Multi-Colored Installation

Straws Print

Plastic Bag Diptych

The environmental artist John Dahlsen resurrects "dead objects" to life, giving them new meaning and beauty far beyond that of their original purpose.

His objects are found on the coast of his native Australia and seem to act as both muse and ingredient in his inspired creations. Coke bottles become translucent pools, puddling under wall sculptures of other found plastic bottles. Straws found on beaches become characters in compositions that seem to dance in a colored frenzy reminiscent of Jackson Pollack. Found driftwood comes back to life in assemblages that become meditations on symmetry and environment in one.

His work is as much about a statement on the forgotten beauty of all that we discard, as it is about desperate need for inventiveness of society to figure out how to make use of all that we deem useless. The artist works in all mediums, including; painting, prints, sculptor, assemblages, installations and photography.

Dahlsen has been showing his work in solo and group shows for almost thirty years in his homeland of Australia, as well as well as in the U.S. and Europe. His work is in major private and public collections in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

For more information on the artists and work of John Dahlsen see his site http://www.johndahlsen.com

The Living Art of Michele Brody

The artist by the name of Michele Brody creates metaphors for the natural world, by creating "living art" utilizing organic and synthetic materials.

Her work, includes photography, installation and sculpture as well as a body of public art. The creations incorporate the use of light, water, earth, and plant seeds - which sprout life out of constructed vessels often made from recycled objects such as medicine bottles or pipes. Other natural form materials used include linen flax paper or linen fabric tubes. The result is an intriguing juxtaposition of the natural and the fabricated.

Her work is focused on organic compositions whose purpose is simply to "grow and survive," and act as documents of their life process. This is often accomplished with the support of irrigation systems that the artist designs and incorporates in her work (such as the Garden Lace,1994). In other work she documents the life of structures within a given natural environment (Parrita in Process, 2000,or her seasonal installation Presencing 1996 ). Brody's construction's seem to both teaching how we can harvest and harness nature, while in the same note somehow reminding the viewer of the awkward artifice of trying to mimic nature.

Brody has had one-person shows at Littlejohn Contemporary in NYC, Dina4 Projekte in Munich, Germany, the Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporaneo in San Jose, Costa Rica, and at Le Quai de la Batterie, and the Atelier-galerie d'Art Contemporain in Arras, France. She has also been the recipient of numerous grants including the the Pollock/ Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, amongst others. Her work is intriguing and thought provoking, and is sure to leave its mark within the contemporary environmental art movment.

For more information: go to www.michelebrody.com