​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.
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​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.

mY BACHELORS OF FINE ARTS
​THESIS PROJECT: home

THROUGH CONNECTION AND
​COOPERATION COMES CHANGE

​Home. A place that should invoke a feeling of safely and comfort. However, homes all across the globe are being affected by a material society deems single-use yet takes years upon years to degrade.

The focus of my work is on humanity’s negative impact on the environment. Using a material detrimental to life elsewhere on our planet, I construct environments that cultivate discussion and contemplation on environmental issues in the hope of changing the attitude and habits of the viewer. Plastic constitutes ninety percent of all trash in the ocean. It causes problems from landfills to our own table. By using it as a material, I hope to dissuade viewers from choosing single-use plastic on a daily basis by making one realize that it may not be suffocating our home but it is doing just that elsewhere.

As a designer, I believe that design is about the ability to make connections and influence change. I look towards social change advocates like artist Daane Roosegaarde and his team as they create interactive environments that connect technology and art through commenting on social issues such as smog and wind energy in projects Smog Free Project and Windlicht. Michelle Lougee creates environmental art out of plastic and other materials that is beautiful until further inspection reveals the material, creating works that entice and engage the viewer and get them thinking. These artists intentions are to bring the problem to the people and get them involved.

People are connected, across backgrounds, borders, and barriers, but through connection and cooperation comes change. Canadian designer, Bruce Mau, once said that, “It’s not about the world of design, but the design of the world.” We should be able to design a healthy planet and then make it happen. Imagine if everything we did was not for our own gain but the collective gain of our planet. If people changed the way they thought about their part in society, what impact could they make?