to a conference in Baton Rouge, Dr. Rahmani
met Dr. Eugene Turner, a wetland biologist,
whom she later joined in efforts to produce
Gulf to Gulf, an endeavour to effect climate
change policy with art.
Through various artistic mediums, Gulf
to Gulf recorded the cyclical catastrophe of
oil, “the destructive loop between fertilizers
derived as by-products from oil, applied to
factory farms, running into the Mississippi and
making dead zones in the Gulf, where ever
more oil is extracted and spilled in what was
once one of the world’s richest ecosystems.”
While Gulf to Gulf continued to grow as a
project in 2009, the Oil & Water series came
into being with a simplified visual message
and a potent strike at the heart of the issue.
“We are in a war for our very survival,”
Dr. Rahmani claimed. It is her hope that
politically charged series like Oil & Water will
enable widespread recognition of “the threat
portrayed in the image,” and that people
would be “mobilized to action.” Oil & Water
engages conversation, as each image offers
hope in the form of “a meditative mandala for
ecological enlightenment.”
Trash Talk and
Sustainable Creativity
Let’s talk dirty. Resourceful artists Marina DeBris
and Aurora Robson have turned discarded
trash into artistic treasure, repurposing waste
in an effort to rejoin the circle of sustainabili ty
and recycling.
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