Based on Bob Dickinson’s Art Monthly Article Art and the Anthropocene

Beginning this research, I was looking for artists that engage with the theme of nature which is central to my practice. In a lot of my feedback on my work I had been directed towards researching the Anthropocene and artists that engage with and respond to this.

National Geographic defines the Anthropocene as ‘geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems’. So how are contemporary artists engaging with the Anthropocene? To explore this, I looked at Art Monthly’s article Art and the Anthropocene.

As such an important topic to discuss and raise awareness of, author Bob Dickinson suggests that, ‘contemporary artists and curators are well placed to mount thought provoking responses to it’. However, there is an expression of uncertainty that ‘traditional, formal’ art can have ‘any effect on public opinion let alone the workings of an ecosystem’.

With this in mind, the article points us towards several artworks in which make a direct impact on the environment’s biodiversity and Eco-system. Art projects at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art such as Wu Mali and Bamboo Curtain Studio’s Plum Tree Creek, 2010-, in which the artists collaborated with local people to restore the Danshui River which water from had become polluted. Dickinson describes the artists involvement to be ‘long-term, low-level’ while ‘reviving traditional cultural attitudes towards the natural world’.

The project in the article that attracted my attention the most, due to my passion for learning and working with children, is Xu Bing’s Forest Project, 2008-, which collaborated with hundreds of school children, in the example in this article, aiding the village of Sandiman, Taiwan in 2014 after Typhoon damage.

The project has taken place internationally, also in Kenya in 2008 and Brazil in 2012. By exhibiting and selling children’s tree drawings to raise funds for tree planting, ‘moving funds from wealthy areas to impoverished areas’ (Bing, 2008) with the value of the drawings boosted by Xu’s involvement. I found this very interesting as I think that creatively engaging younger generations through practical learning is essential in addressing the environmental issues.

Referring back to Dickinson’s earlier questioning on the effect of ‘traditional’ artwork on ‘public opinion’ and ‘the workings of an eco-system’, this project is one of the many examples of how contemporary art has changed in order to achieve this. Art has began to adapt and evolve from solely provoking surrounding discussion and awareness to be able to do this simultaneously with making direct physical impact on the environment, its biodiversity and the future of the planet.

References:

Society, N., 2021. Anthropocene. [online] National Geographic Society. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/anthropocene/ Dickinson, B., 2021. Art Monthly : Article : Art and the Anthropocene. Artmonthly.co.uk https://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/article/art-and-the-anthropocene-by-bob-dickinson Bing, X., 2021. XU BING – ARTWORK – Forest Project. Xubing.com. http://www.xubing.com/en/work/details/177?type=project.