‘Unhappily Ever After’,  Jeff Hong, Digital Image, 2014

Sustainability is something that can be defined in numerous ways. But perhaps the most important is the sustainability of our planet, which is under constant threat. It is well known that humans are the cause of this as the balance between the production and consumption of resources is not equal. One artist who has taken it into his own hands to spread bold environmental statements is Jeff Hong with his Unhappily Ever After work. He is a Disney animation artist based in New York who worked on movies including Mulan, and Tarzan. Hong has spoken out about how he hopes to change some peoples’ habits and take responsibility for the planet. Looking at his work in terms of sustainability, Hong shows the consequences of not taking any notice to it. I have chosen his piece where the household character ‘Winnie the Pooh’ is seen among a logged forest. This highlights how humans are taking resources as they please and not replacing them, knocking the balance of production and consumption which is essential to sustain a healthy, clean planet. By using well known characters, Hong almost humanises the effects of not having a sustainable lifestyle, as before it was considered ‘just a bear’, but he creates an emotional connection to the image. Each of his images holds a similar response, with the Little Mermaid covered in oil on a beach and Nemo’s coral reef destroyed, all invoking an emotional response. His controversial images are key in virally spreading the problems that are caused when humans are not bothered by losing the balance between production and consumption of resources, in hope to change our unsustainable lifestyle.