Teaching Ecoartivism
Carla Goldberg, “It’s All About the River,” 2009
— “ecoartivism”; Pronunciation: ēko’ar –ti,- vi-zəm; Function: noun
The practice of using art as a tool for the advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment; especially: the movement to control pollution.
— “eco·art·iv·ist”; noun or adjective
While all artists are meaning-makers of the world in which we live, those that I refer to as “ecoartivists” use their artistic expression to connect the rest of us to the environment, which we all too often take for granted. In addition to the need for self-expression, these artists find they have a calling to protect and care for the physical world we inhabit.
During college in 1992, while living for a semester in London, I was inspired by an ecoartivist. On the way back to my flat, I walked by an outdoor exhibit at the Natural History Museum of large-scale photographic prints by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, which were mounted on twelve-foot high posts. Next to each gorgeous landscape image was a poster of equal size, with a fact in bold type about the negative effect humans are having on the part of the world that was pictured. As a photographer, I found the work to be breathtaking; as a human, I found the facts about how we are damaging the earth to be enraging.
Carla Goldberg is a local ecoartivist. This past week, she came into my classroom and spoke about her mixed media paintings, which combine acrylic and oil paint with objects in layers of resin. She described her current installation, It’s All About the River, which highlights fish that are in danger of becoming extinct in the Hudson River. Carla’s work is both evocative and powerful. Through this installation, she is raising awareness of the pollution that exists in the river. Carla inspired me to research and share with my students information about power plants that use outdated cooling systems, which pollute the river daily. My students, in turn, were inspired to create their own art about these fish and will be mailing these works to the governor of New York state, hoping to encourage him to act.
