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Art & Ecology:

Photoessays: Art and the Earth



Changing Views About Art and the Earth

Ecological Art and Life-Centered Issues

by Don Krug and Jennifer Siegenthaler

Since the late 1970s, and continuing today, a growing number of artists are creating ecologically sound art intended to heal the environment and provide solutions to the many problems facing natural and urban ecosystems. These artists often collaborate with scientists, landscape architects, and urban planners. Among the best known are Helen Mayer Harrison (b. 1929) and Newton Harrison (b. 1932) of San Diego, who began making art together in the late 1960s in response to Carson's Silent Spring. For the past two decades they have devoted themselves to analyzing environmental problems in places around the globe and devising creative solutions. Their proposals often incorporate maps, photographs, drawings, and poetic texts as well as spoken performances. While their proposals have not always been put into effect, increasingly they have been. The Harrisons are ecological artists, working on solutions to life-centered issues. How have other ecological artists dealt with specific life-centered issues such as urban waste?



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