Consumerist Materialism vs Ecological Materialism
Artists model humanity’s highest standards of environmental responsibility by reversing the environmentally disastrous effects of ‘consumerist materialism’. Such materialism assumes that material goods will always be cheap, abundant, and replaceable, and therefore undeserving of moderation, stewardship, and accountability. This neglectful attitude currently prevails in advanced industrial nations, including artists’ choices of mediums and tools.
A responsible form of material interaction is known as ‘ecological materialism’. It honors the imperative, imposed by the planet-wide disruption of ecosystem functions, that all material interactions and all material choices consider current and long term effects on water, air, soil, and weather, and all forms of life.
Consumerist Materialism vs Ecological Materialism
Artists who practice ecological materialism positions themselves at the forefront of social change. By adopting exemplary strategies for supplying their studios, they demonstrate ethically and pragmatically sustainable behaviors.These strategies are exemplary when they surpass simply minimizing the harmful effects of markers, pigments, binders, pastes, solvents, etc. by purchasing commercial products from ‘green’ industrial manufacturers. Instead, it involves generating studio supplies that simultaneously mitigate environmental blight. For example, the ingredients of a pencil or ink will consist of toxic particles removed from the air, or paper will be produced from litter collected from gutters, or pigments will be attained from chemicals leached from soil, or brushes will be made from invasive plants uprooted from fields.
With this mission in mind, Natalie Jeremijenko and I are establishing The Studio Art Environmental Health Clinic. Its goal is to enhance art’s ability to substitute consumerist materialism with ecological materialism. We are originating, gathering, and disseminating these strategies in the form of an accessible, DIY book of health ‘prescriptions’ oriented to the well-being of the Earth’s eco systems and its diverse inhabitants. The recipes will be remedial for the environment, manageable for production, and safe for the artist. These model strategies will be published in book form and online.
Minimally, the book will serve as a formal call to artists to invent, utilize, and promote methods for supplying an art studio through activist environmental interventions. Beyond influencing these individuals, the book will present principles of behavioral transformation that apply to all humanity’s material interactions. Through these means the SAEHC will demonstrate how humans can beautify, diversify, and vitalize the environment, instead of disfiguring, reducing, and weakening it.
Artists can truly fulfill their potential as ‘culture bearers’ by demonstrating that stewardship is as essential to material choices as convenience, function, creativity, and delight. The SAEHC provides the tools for them to achieve this goal.