This guest post by author Linda Weintraub, To Life!: Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet, considers personal beliefs around environmental issues and art for Earth Day.
A planet in peril has convinced many environmentalists to call for a complete overhaul of humanity’s current means for acquiring, using, and discarding resources. They share a widespread conviction that that the seeds of environmental reform are not tangible or technological; they are conceptual and subjective. While our material interactions with the planet originate in attitudes and assumptions, no authority exists to define and enforce the cultural values that generate sustainable actions.
Nonetheless, environmental reform depends as much upon each individual’s subjective opinions as upon industry’s technologies and the government’s ordinances. Often we are not aware of our own attitudes and outlooks until someone asks for our opinion.
The concepts and choices in this personal survey (see link below) are designed to help you construct a blueprint of your individual environmental beliefs. It is hoped that this blueprint may encourage you to reflect upon your material interactions and consider integrating these insights into your creative art practices.
Thus, let us honor the Earth on Earth Day by reflecting upon its current state and the choices we might make on its behalf.
Download the Personal Environmental Survey, and find additional classroom exercises here.
Linda Weintraub is author of To Life!: Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet, Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art’s Meaning in Contemporary Society; In the Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art and Avant-Guardians: Textlets in Art and Ecology. She is a contributor to the Women Environmental Artists Directory (WEAD) magazine Issue 6 on ‘Dirty Water’, and her upcoming appearances include Evergreen College, Washington (April 22-23) and BBOX radio interview (April 29).
