GROWTH

Uh oh, climate art!

Let me first comfort you with some familiar jargon from my engineer brain: Burning fossil fuels is turning up the heat in here, which is very bad according to the people who study these things. We burn fossil fuels for so many completely necessary reasons, like in our cars to get to the mall faster, or to make electricity, and we need electricity because all our STUFF runs on electricity! And so we’ll produce other means of energy production, but all of it has major issues. Solar and wind needs batteries (because we MUST have unlimited energy 24/7) which are toxic and energy intensive to make. Nuclear produces radioactive waste. There’s no silver bullet solution, so it seems like the answer is to use less energy, but we keep using more anyway.

I hope I have it wrong, but it seems to me like we’re stripping our decedents of the opportunity to breathe clean air or drink clean water, maybe to live, for the sake of our own amusement. And I feel stuck in it. Everywhere and everything costs money, so money I must make, and that means being valuable to my fellow humans today. So the idea of the end of this system simultaneously conjures anxiety and relief. Everything we currently hold on a pedestal rotting, leaving way for another way of life.

So I made this piece to bring into the real world the feeling I have of the beauty in the end. And no, it is not lost on me that I used very much energy to produce a piece of art that criticizes the use of energy. This hypocritical existence of the piece is a reflection of what drove me to make it.

The title, “Growth”, imagines abandoned cities around the world appearing as crystal-like formations growing on the planet’s surface. Or the rapid growth of human activity leading to its demise. Or the growth mindset in business and consumerism (more = better) leading to over-production, over-consumption, and exploitation of people and the natural world. Or the growth we all need to look past ourselves and live and make decisions for the benefit of future generations.