Blog 2: Psychedelic Design Hero

This blog post isn’t about a certain designer, but rather about an art movement that I feel quite passionate about Environmental art. This was inspired by the section of our lecture where Paul brought up the early beginnings of the environmental movement, which I wanted to look into. That led me here. During my research, it was almost funny to look back at the history of art, design, and architecture and see just how long the artists behind some of the most influential movements have been advocating for nature. Climate awareness as it turns out has been around longer than the word “climate change”. That being said, there has never been a time it is needed more than right now.

The environmental movement has been a long process. As of the early days of industrialization, there have been actions taken to protect nature from it. National parks were created and sanctuaries established, all with the aim of protecting our ecosystem. Perhaps most monumental was the creation of Greenpeace in Vancouver in 1971. This organization would grow to become one of the spearheads of the modern climate movement 

Since its founding, Greenpeace has fought against many potentially harmful acts against the environment. They have blocked the dumping of certain materials in the ocean, protested nuclear testing, organized and enforced animal sanctuaries, created petitions, designated world heritage spots, and lobbied against multiple governments

Nowadays, we not only have design and illustration based on the environmental movement but environmentally-themed art has become its own category of art: Land art. Land art aims to link and observe the relationship between nature and humans, with art serving as a sort of bridge connecting the two. Artists that create this art aim to alter materials found in nature in a non-destructive way. The harmless alteration of position or formation infuses nature with the human element.