Sustainability fuses with art

The topic of sustainability usually involves preserving the Earth and its natural resources through technology and science. ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is taking a different route to examine this topic by hosting two art exhibitions that fuse the humanities and sustainability.

The exhibitions explore the relationship between human beings and nature and propose solutions within existing cultural structures. “Sustainability and the Visual Arts” was on display last semester. “Between Two Worlds: Art by Melanie Yazzie” is currently on display.

“The Institute for Humanities Research is enlarging the university’s definition of its sustainability initiative by highlighting the contributions of the humanities and the arts,” says Sally Kitch, founding director of the institute and co-curator of the exhibitions. “The ‘Sustainability and the Visual Arts’ exhibition, which was a juried show of student and community work, is part of the institute’s larger commitment to the humanities and sustainability.”

The exhibition, which was displayed from October 2007 to January 2008, showcased two-dimensional and small-scale sculptures from eight artists. The artists were asked to explore new meanings and interpretations of sustainability. Local artists related their experiences in the Valley, preserving their cultural and linguistic experiences, while others used new materials and methodologies when creating their work.

“The humanities and the arts can provide such contextual knowledge, evoke emotional as well as analytical responses to our current environmental crisis, and situate proposed solutions within larger cultural frameworks. The humanities and the arts can also help redesign the future, redefine the relationship between human beings and nature, and reformulate the connection of human societies to the Earth and all of its systems,” says Kitch.

“The exhibit proves that works of art can posit critical viewpoints and perspectives; this exhibition also revitalizes sustainability and the ways we understand it. In order for sustainability to become a successful ideology, humanists, scientists and artists must be invited to the table,” says John-Michael Warner, graduate student and the other co-curator of the exhibition.

The exhibitors included Amy Richardson, Mary Lyverse, Adam Frus, Candace Jim, Maria Michails, Lisa Corine von Koch, Keith Stanton and Chloe Palmer.

Amy Richardson’s photography captures her feelings of displacement and despair as she witnesses what is lost from her childhood neighborhood as more and more people and activities stress the landscape. Similarly, Mary Lyverse’s abstract paintings of the prairie introduce what seems like a passive landscape with energy and change, registering time and transformation.

A flat globe with a faucet, Adam Frus’ piece asks the viewer to consider how the Earth’s human inhabitants can balance water usage with the natural recharge rate and how we can best take responsibility for the impact of our individual actions.

Candace Jim’s sculpture of corn exemplifies how the natural world sustains human beings and cultures. Corn represents life itself to many American Indian people.

Maria Michails’ hand-carved canoe shapes remind viewers of the water shortage that will confront our desert environment as its water resources are depleted.

Lisa Corine von Koch uses wood grown from sustainable forests and other products of the natural world, such as beeswax, to raise viewers’ awareness of human degradation of the Earth.

Keith Stanton’s photographs depict artificial environments and people’s efforts to beautify nature. His pieces interrogate the way mass media transmits knowledge of the natural world to children.

Chloe Palmer’s sculptural pieces sum up a major point of the exhibition and help to clarify the role of humanities and the arts in sustainability. The dangling hand and the empty apron call viewers’ attention to the unseen aspects of our glutinous consumption and waste of natural resources.

The current exhibit “Between Two Worlds: Art by Melanie Yazzie,” is a compilation of 15 pieces spanning the artist’s career. A printmaker, painter and sculptor, Yazzie’s work explores how she lives as a native person in the contemporary world and negotiates that space as a human being and artist. Her art stems from her world travels, childhood memories and personal triumphs.

“I think when I travel, I realize that we’re all coming from different cultures and places but we are all human beings that have common experiences of living on this Earth. The symbols and ideas that are important in one location, would be just as important in other places, but displayed in a different manner,” says Yazzie, associate professor of art at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“The international collaboration that I work on with artists from other countries promotes cultural understanding and preservation between different people,” Yazzie says.

According to Warner, melding the humanities and art provides cultural, historic and linguistic inclusion and exchange, while collaborating across disciplines including human rights, gender identity, critical race and feminist theories introduces the opportunity to pose new questions.

Yazzie’s exhibition will be open during business hours through May 14 at the Institute for Humanities Research in the Social Sciences Building, Room 107, at ASU’s Tempe campus. The works of art in the “Between Two Worlds: Art by Melanie Yazzie” exhibition are loaned from the Glenn Green Galleries and Sculpture Garden, Bluejacket Family Collection, Hayward Simoneaux and John-Michael Warner.
More information at asu.edu/clas/ihr.

Erica Velasco, erica.velasco@asu.edu
480-965-1156
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences