Arte e meio ambiente: do não-lugar ao artivismo

Abstract

Can art shape or change human behaviors and directly affect the protection of the environment? Which “sensitive remedies” has contemporary art offered to the environmental problems of a given place? After these questions, I directed my research in arts to the crisis of the oceans in the new geological epoch we live in: the Anthropocene. In this work, in addition to analyzing my own production and interests as an artist/biologist, I researched and reflected on the relationship between art and the environment, especially marine pollution by plastics. There is a historical evolution of the interest of art in the environment and a broad spectrum of artists’ approaches, from the more conceptual to the artivists, who exhibit their works on the street or in large circulation media. I worked analyzing artistic productions and conducting interviews with artists, teaching elementary school students and producing paintings, photographs, objects, drawings, installations and texts. In a series of walks, mainly by the beaches of Rio Grande do Norte, I collected about 500 kg of marine litter, part was collected, and part properly discarded. I conclude that there is no formula for the artist and science to reconnect, but I perceive a vast field of synergy, enhanced by the particularities of image production for the issues of a given place, especially in Brazil, where we suffer a severe environmental and educational crisis.