EVENT 1: "WHAT'S NEXT? Eco Materialism and Contemporary Art" BY LINDA WEINTRAUB

Photo 1: Photo with Linda Weintraub. I am the furthest right
person in the photo.
On April 18th, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Linda Weintraub called “WHAT’S NEXT? Eco Materialism and Contemporary Art”. In this lecture, Linda talked about the impact of mankind on nature and about her adoption of a sustainable lifestyle. However before getting to this larger discussion, Linda explored some other concepts. 

One very interesting concept that Linda explored was the different expectations of mankind from nature. She herself was directed towards this discussion when she was visiting a beautiful place with her friend. Upon her expressing the beauty of nature with great excitement, her friend asked her the question “Is that all?”. Linda took it upon herself to explore this question and use work by different artists to explore their viewpoints on this topic. Two particular artists that Linda explored that really jumped out at me were Frederic Church and Claude Monet.

Photo 2: Monet's Incredible Painting
Church and Monet had contrasting opinions on nature. Although both artists portray the beauty of nature in their paintings, they do it any very different manners. Church held the belief that nature was too unruly and disorganized to exhibit beauty. He believed that it was an artist’s duty to organize and harmonize nature, in order to achieve true beauty. He manipulated the nature around him to make it beautiful. However, Monet simply painted nature as he saw it. He believed that world is already exceptionally beautiful and there was no need to manipulate it. If these artists were posed the question “Is that all?”, they would quite likely have different answers. Monet’s resounding yes would probably be met by Church’s no. However, I personally would have to side with Monet on this discussion.

Photo 3: Using VR to view Phantom
Another interesting artwork that Linda talked about was the work by Daniel Steegmann Mangrané called “Phantom”. Mangrané uses new technology such as Oculus technology to recreate a piece of the Brazilian rainforest, in a virtual reality setting. A person trying to view to view this artwork would put on a headgear and walk through the rainforest as shown in Photo 3. This is a brilliant way to raise awareness of the rainforests, which are rapidly disappearing, and really show the negative impact of mankind. 

Towards the end of the lecture, Linda talked about the larger discussion of ecological impact of human behavior, and her own project. Her project is part of a larger social movement of ecological sensibility, and in this she showed us how she had created her own balanced ecosystem. She has adjusted her lifestyle in a way such that she completely lives off the land and fulfills most of her needs through things found naturally. From growing her own food to raising her own animals to using wood from the forest for heat and building fences, she only relies on nature. It was very cool to see her process of making maple syrup. I also really liked the little pond she made in her house.



Photo 4: Plants Linda grows and forages in her own forest
Photo 5: Pond made with stones she found near the river  


I was very impressed with the point she was trying to make. I agree that sustainability is a growing need for humanity, and everyone needs to make some contribution. Although adopting a similar lifestyle to what Linda has is unrealistic, I definitely think that more can and needs to be done by us.

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