Artists use their works to explore and highlight environmental themes, approaching them in an evocative and poetic manner.
Canadian artist and photographer Benjamin Von Wong and social impact strategist Laura Francois created a sculpture made from 18,000 plastic cups that were disposed of at 23 hawker centres in Singapore over just 1.5 days. Von Wong hopes his installation will be a “fun” way to continue the conversation about plastic waste and get people more aware about the plastic they use in their daily lives.
It is on display as part of Plastikophobia, a showcase that runs at the Sustainable Singapore Gallery at Marina Barrage till 18 April.
Plastikophobia’s launch a fortnight ago was particularly timely. The year 2019 has been dubbed Singapore’s Year Towards Zero Waste, a year-long campaign that aims to raise awareness of waste issues.
A series of public consultations will contribute towards a Zero Waste Masterplan, which will be unveiled later this year and outline strategies the Government will implement in the next few years.
On the arts front, there has been a wave of events exploring environmental issues. These range from art exhibitions to theatre productions.
The NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) Singapore has also made the environment a focus of its various activities from 2017 to next year. It will hold an exhibition on climate change in late 2020.
The environmental theme is also seeping into some theatre works.
Pangdemonium’s Dragonflies, shown at the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) two years ago, explored the issue of climate change.
And The Necessary Stage‘s production The Year Of No Return, commissioned for next year’s SIFA, has a title that suggests how failing to curb carbon emissions by 2020 will lead to the rise of global temperatures past the point of no return.
Last year, artist Zai Tang, 34, started a series called Escape Velocity, made of field recordings of wildlife-rich locations in Singapore under threat from urbanisation.
His second work in the series, installed under the West Coast Highway last year, was a composition of slowed-down field recordings from Bukit Brown, MacRitchie and the Rail Corridor. The sounds of birds, insects and macaques were augmented, at times in a rather uncanny way, and heard against a visual backdrop of abstract animations.
Some artworks at the recent MeshMinds exhibition at the ArtScience Museum used technology to jolt people into awareness.
The Mount That Keeps Growing, by arts collective DPLMT, looks like a beautiful goddess flanked by sea waves. But on closer inspection, viewers realise that the artwork is made up of images of aluminium cans, plastic bottles and other forms of waste – which come to life with the help of augmented reality.
Changing attitudes on environmental issues with art
“Every effort to change the world for the better matters,” says Patrick Flores, artistic director of the upcoming Singapore Biennale, which runs from Nov 22 to March 22 next year, and the theme is Every Step In The Right Direction.
Veteran sculptor Han Sai Por, 75, also hopes governments will take heed.
She began her ongoing Black Forest series of installations in 2011, in response to the forest fires in Sumatra and the haze it produced.
Sculptor Han Sai Por began her Black Forest installations in response to the forest fires in Sumatra.
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Source: The Straits Times, 19 March 2019