Living with the trouble

Date
2021-09-20
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Abstract
This paper focuses on how art can help to bring heightened awareness about plastic pollution. I describe how I create drawings that process these topics and tell stories about our troubled planet through animation and illustration. I intend to bring awareness about single-use plastic pollution by disseminating my work on social media. I explore theories and the creation of other artists that believe art can be a powerful medium to discuss the concept of the Anthropocene and the human-caused changes to the environment, such as climate change, extermination, mass extinction, plastic pollution, etc. My concerns for the environment started when I lived in Iran; I visited the Caspian Sea and saw the beach covered in plastic. Most countries struggle with their waste. We live in the age of plastic. Everything we use is somehow made out of this material, and it has made our life a lot more convenient. However, this convenience in using single-use plastic materials is destroying the ecosystem. With the high demand for PPE in the time of a pandemic and all the measurements that we are required to take, the use of single-use plastic has increased even more. Therefore, I started my artistic research on this issue. In this regard, I try to explore the ways that art can evoke emotions towards the environmental problems caused in the time of the Anthropocene.
Description
Keywords
Plastic pollution, PPE waste, Anthropocene, Art, Experimental animation, Illustration, Social media
Citation
Mosaverzadeh, M. (2021). Living with the trouble (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.