WW11: Eye of the Storm Exhibit

Wonder Women 11: Eye of the Storm was an exhibit that held no remorse to the passion for letting the public see and understand the disgusting truth that humans are hurting earth. From the disaster hurricanes, land spills, glacier melts, pollution and more nine different artist came together to bring awareness to mankind that the earth we live on is dying from our mishaps.

"Re-approaching Nature" (photograph)
"Bonding with Plastic" (sculpture) 

The first piece that caught my eye is seen on the bottom of this photograph, of a tree bark like sculpture called "Bonding with Plastic" by an artist named Olga M. Bautista. The moment I saw this project I felt I already had an understanding of the message it was trying to portray. The main subject of this project from the artist, Olga M. Bautista  was to show how plastic and garbage debris has become so tangled into nature that it could literally grow from the bark of a tree. After "Sandy" the hurricane that accord in New Jersey  six years ago over 100,000 trees were lost. We as humans needs trees to survive however they are so lightly praised. The relationship that humans have with using plastic has taken a toll on the land and environment we live with. By showing the the plastic within the bark, it brings awareness to the endangering habits that humans have just like how the movie "Happy Feet" showed the penguins were surrounded by the troubles of human's bad habits. the picture on top called, "Re-approaching Nature" by Olga Bautista  supports her statement by showing all the garbage and plastic on the beaches shore line. The same trash that humans try to get rid of end up right back to their feet in a cycle of plastic obsession.

Climate Altars (Yamaya)

This piece was my favorite for many reasons that honestly are still unrecognizable to me yet. "Climate Altars (Yemaya) is about a woman that embraces her blackness and being queer. What I took from this piece was the black girl being mother nature and the blue symbolizing the world and how happy she could be. The artifacts on the bottom was all of the different effects to the world whether positive or negative like the Cuban cigar (Negative~pollution) and the apple(Positive~fruit). Her goal for this project was to get the viewers to be self empowered, and "to be comfortable being uncomfortable". This piece ties in with the social-political aspect of this exhibit because it helps people embrace who they are being being "queer" is politically dangerous and can cause you to become an outsider to society or any other lifestyle they feel is dehumanizing. The only critique I have on this piece is that it is very confusing trying to understand the reason for this piece as a whole.

The Ark Project

"The Ark Project" by Deborah Sperry was an interactive project. This artwork was made of paper, string and wood to symbolize melting glaciers and what we can do as a society to stop global warming. You got to pick a piece of paper and write about what people think needs to be done to the world either politically or environmentally. By people writing their suggestions it gives the artist ongoing suggestions to be given to the EPA in the hopes that the world will soon become a cleaner place to be in the future. The activism in this projects speaks for itself and that has been why this project is seen with so many different color sticky notes. Just like in the book,"Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st century" by Nato Thompson talk about how art is the top way to show how an artist may feel politically about something because people are more moved by visual than words sometimes and I am one of though people like to see things visually or be able to interact with what I am paying attention to.

Tombola and the Catacombs(I-XVI)

Tombola and the Catacombs by Wendell Jeffrey spoke a message to the people about how people do not realize how much of a cause they are to creating a lot of disasters. The beetle bug that lies beneath the wood of trees called, the "emerald as borer who takes the lives of ash trees-trees that humans need to survive. This project was made out of cement, copper, foam, paint, paper, plastic , wood and pastel paper. Out of all the exhibits this was the piece of artwork that I had the most trouble trying to understand which is why I chose it to be my last mentioned opinion. The sculpture to me represented the change from a tree going from being healthy to being eaten away dying removing the rich brown color from their bark. We as people are the cause of this bug spreading from North America and the cause of many other disgusting effects that the earth is going through. But, as the artist also says, humans are the same people who can change the world to such a beautiful environment. From the website Emerald Ash Borer we get to learn
more about this insect and find out that, "As of August 2017, it is now found in 31 states, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Since its discovery, EAB has: Killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America. Caused regulatory agencies and the USDA to enforce quarantines and fines to prevent potentially infested ash trees, logs or hardwood firewood from moving out of areas where EAB occurs."

"The Interventionists: User's Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life" by editors Thompson and Sholette and Noordeman the designer. This art piece from the book that I noticed that was demonstrating activism was an artist named, "Alex Villar" called, "In Temporary Occupation" who uses the world as his campus on top of using just materials. He has artwork showing him walking abnormally than an average person would handle themselves in the street. He rebels from the social norms given by society and demands to have his on freedom to do as he pleases. Showing activism is one of the many ways a subject that is not well liked gets enough attention whether it is good attention or bad attention. In "Seeing Power", on page 147-148 we get a chances to read about activism first hand , "Harkening back to the late nineteenth-century labor movement, the aesthetic agitators have created sandwich boards demanding basic workers' rights like the forty-hour workweek." Activism comes in all shapes and sizes and the WW11 exhibit is another example of activism in its most creative form:art.


One of  the amazing artist from out of the book, "Interventionist" there was a year long debut of artwork from January 2003- Fall 2003 in New York City called "Street Rec" who showed their political views in their artwork in a video. The art project formed because people were taking stand against the, "world Economic Forum" The main artwork shown is of political leaders shown including Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney with oil dripping from their faces symbolizing how the world is driven by money because owning oil and mining oil was a huge investment for America however, it was breaking the natural world that we live in. There have been numerous oil spills that have effected the water of millions of animals and people. "Yet since the iconic 1969 oil well blowout in Santa Barbara, California, there have been at least 44 oil spills, each over 10,000 barrels (420,000 gallons), affecting U.S. waters. The largest of which was the 2010 Deepwater Horizon well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico." The art from the book may not initially had the intentions of being politically moving however, it was very moving for people to see the reality of their government at the time in America. 



References:
1. WW11: Eye of the Storm Exhibit Hepburn Hall New Jersey City University
2. Emerald Ash Borer,  http://www.emeraldashborer.info/
2. Nato Thompson, Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st century, pg. 147-48
3. "The Interventionist:User's Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life" by editors Thompson and Sholette and Noordeman the designer, pg. 
4. Office of Response and Restoration, https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/oil-spills/largest-oil-spills-affecting-us-waters-1969.html