issue 49 - "Changing the Discourse" - Time to Think - Michaela Hall

The world we live in is incredibly complex, international events, climate change and social issues to name a few things are becoming a more important factor in how we live our lives. Society can be overwhelming, and it can be hard to get the bottom of what’s fact and what’s opinion in today’s fast-paced social media orientated newsreel. Creativity gives the lifeline to many of space and time to think, of an alternative way for issues to be represented without any other consequence to create conversation and awareness and provide a moment of the hamster wheel to change the discourse of what we’re a part of.  Art can be used as a tool for promoting change or ideas that we feel should be noticed.

A powerful balance to strike is creating an artwork to present questions and conversation that doesn’t heavily impose an opinion on the viewer and lets them decide. This is something expertly done by artist and environmentalist Jason deCaires Taylor who places large confrontational and striking sculptures underwater to not only draw our attention to the aquatic landscape but also provoke deep thought around the conservation of our waters and the sometimes hard-hitting subjects that his sculptures allude to. The beauty of these artworks is that the artist is not preaching a certain view to us in such a direct way, he is simply putting the right tools and environments in place to allow us to notice and consider the issues. He even made the first underwater sculpture park – again playing on tourism being brought to nature to put it at the forefront. ‘The Raft of Lampedusa’ situated underwater in Lanzarote is harrowing and strikes images up reminiscent of what we may see on the news of sunken boats, something that is impossible to forget. Similarly, in ‘Inertia’ we see a man sat watching a TV on the sofa, this contrast with the underwater environment provokes us to think about our relationship with nature.

Also using materials to provoke us to think about environmental issues is Ghanian artist El Anatsui whose sculptures are famous for being comprised of thrown away materials such as bottles, papers and plastic that we would usually clash as rubbish. He then uses these materials and transforms them into beautiful structures that get them noticed in a revived way, an approach that sends a message about how we discard materials so quickly globally. Some of the most beautiful of these are his wooden pieces from the 1970s. These powerful and bold wall hangings that now seem very high-end and luxurious are actually made from old used wooden trays from the Ghana town markets. Similarly, ‘Another Man’s Cloth’ (2006) is a wall hanging with incredible detail and composition both in texture and form and this was too made from discarded liquor bottle caps and old wire

These artists show the power that creativity of approach in making an artwork can have in providing space and time for the viewer to think about important issues. The thought provoking works serve a purpose as being timeless and not tied to one ideal, but promoting the idea that we should all be thinking about certain things, no matter the outcome.