Sustainability is recognising how we can meet our needs in the present, while taking the responsibility to not compromise future generations to meet their own means. While sustainability is often associated with environmental responsibilities such as climate change and recycling; but it also includes impacts on economic and social factors. So by definition sustainable art incorporates principles of sustainability in some way, either through what their constructed with and or the message it means to say about our responsibilities to be sustainable.

 

The work of German installation artist, HA Schult incorporates themes of sustainability through constructing his work primarily from rubbish. Arguably his most well known installation is Trash People, which feature around one thousand life-sized humanoid sculptures made up entirely of various pieces of rubbish. Works like this attempt to provoke the artist into thought. Schult does this by recreating the recognise silhouette of a human and use it has a reflection on how as a consumerist society we are responsible for the amount of waste their is. Schult is also makes a comment on the lasting impact waste has by comparing it to man made achievements that have stood for hundreds if not thousands of years, because similarly a lot of the waste we throw away in our day to day lives such as plastic, metal, and glass ca take centuries to decompose. In essence they will exist as long as mankind’s greatest achievements. Which is why this installation is often situated near such places like the Pyramids of Giza in 2002, the Great Wall of China, 2001, Roman Amphitheatre in Xanten, 1996, and other places of similar significance. “Today’s Coca-Cola bottle is the Roman archaeological found of tomorrow”, HA, Shult.

References:

1: http://www.haschult.de/action/trashpeople

26/1/2021

 

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