WHY I CHOSE MY BFA TOPIC
The Spring of 2015, I spent a semester in Puerto Rico on a student exchange program. Over those short months, I learned more about myself than I have over many years. I have fond memories of my time there but I also resolved to try and make a change in this world for the better. The amount of trash I saw throughout the beautiful beaches and towns were astounding to me. Living in the midwest, rarely did I have to think about the ocean and what effect humanity had on it. I knew we had caused many issues, by no means was I naive to the truth, but seeing it under my feet as I walked along the shores made my heart ache.
The Fall of 2016 took my new husband and I the farthest opposite Puerto Rico I had been, to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Here, I walked the cold shores and still saw man-made invasions that had washed up to this beautiful wilderness. The same occurred when I traveled to that Californian coast Spring 2017. Wherever I went I was enraptured by the beauty of the rolling blue hills and angered by the colorful bits that littered the shore. Throughout all of this, I was also paying attention to the amount of plastic scattered across Omaha. Most of my work focuses on the environment in an unattainable goal of capturing the beauty of it. But the wonder of photographs or painting and the such, is that we hide the ugly, we hide the trash and the people. We hide the problem and it's cause. My BFA work is meant to show people what they are doing and what the issues are. Working with plastic started as a specific idea to get people aware yet I know there is a larger solution of sustainability in general. My future plans shall address these but for now, I have found an interest in working with this material. All things are toxic in excess, and we have more that enough plastic being consumed and not recycled as intended. My fight is not with the companies or manufacturers specifically, although they play a major role. My fight is to make the whole of humanity understand that this consumerism-based concept of tossing the old to keep up with the new is detrimental to life elsewhere on our planet. I hope to make people think of their impact on our environment and introduce small changes that will be part of a grander redesign. |