As part of my course, we get talks and seminars we can attend hosted by tutors or visiting designers. Last week I was able to attend a session run by Rolf Pilarsky that focussed on ecological issues. Greenwashing was a major theme of our discussions, and we talked about companies who may have very un-environmental working practices but who get artists and designers to gloss over this and present them in a much better way.
Rolf is from Berlin, and commutes by plane to Bath every week. You could argue that he is in a pretty bad position to be arguing for ecological awareness because plane journeys are known as being bad for carbon emissions. However, I am glad that he does commute as it gave me the chance to see some work he has been doing on the theme of environment, and he also showed us work by other artists, mainly photographers, who did work that was inspired by activism and social conscience.
After he showed us his work, one of the major points that came across was that it is still important to draw awareness to these issues, even if doing so consumes lots of energy and resources itself. Otherwise we might as well just do nothing and sit with the lights off. Even making a small change is important because that is how the big changes come about. Although there were a lot of well argued and conflicting points of view in the discussion, I still believe that with change you have to start somewhere and not just opt out.
Anyway, here is some of the photography that he showed us, and if you follow the link to Rolf's website, there is more on his video there.
Shipbreaking. Parts of old tankers are left to be broken up in poorer countries, sometimes containing toxic substances.
Robert Polidari. Photographs from Chernobyl and the town of Pripyat. These photos have a very eerie abandonment to them, more so when you know the context.
George Osodi. The fire in the background burned for 45 days. This photo was taken in Nigeria. There is more on this story here.
Alan Sekula. Shipwreck.
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