Burial (2020)
Humanity has made its mark on our planet over the past 200,000 years, like the first hand prints staining cave walls in Cáceres, Spain over 65,000 years ago, a sort of declaration to the world “Here I am, here’s my mark.” Since then the marks humanity have left behind have become more constant, destructive and irreversible, humanities activity has fundamentally changed our plant, we have directly affected 83% of our planets visible land surface. (Human Origins , 2018).
Our impact on the planet is so profound that a new geological epoch is being proposed, the Anthropocene. Various dates have been proposed for this epoch ranging from Industrial Revolution of the 1800s when human activities had a large impact carbon and methane in the earth's atmosphere, to as recent as 1945, as a result of fallout from atomic bomb testing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, (National Geographic, 2019) an array of other signals include plastic pollution, mass production, concrete, even bones of domestic chickens were under consideration.
The current epoch we live in is the Holocene, it is 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age, however the noticeable acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions, mass extinction of spices, rising sea level, plastic pollution, and deforestation marks the end of the Holocene epoch experts say.
The evidence of humanities impact on the planet is overwhelming, however the changes are very recent, “One criticism of the Anthropocene as geology is that it is very short,” said Zalasiewicz Our response is that many of the changes are irreversible.” (Zalasiewicz, J., 2013).
Although the damage may be irreversible this isn’t an excuse to give up, we must act. Extinction Rebellion is a global environmental movement with the aim of using no violent civil disobedience to compel action to avoid breaking points in the climates system, biodiversity loss and the risk of social and ecological collapse. The movement aims to rally support around the world to tackle this pressing issue which affects us all.
Many artists such as Banksy backed the movement by incorporating the Extinction Rebellion symbol in their works. The Symbol has been called this generations peace symbol. In an aim of continuing the conversation of plastic pollution I made this body of work, communicating to the viewer the effects pollution via GIFs, looking at the domestic setting including fabrics and care labels which isn't discussed as much, however the production and consumption of mass-produced Fabric/clothing threatens our environment, as synthetic fibers and micro fibers pollute marine environments.
The symbol Extinction rebellion uses is a minimalist hour glasses sitting in a circle, it serves as a warning that time is running out and we need to act fast.