Tons- Krysti Alejandro

 Tons

Imagine you are in your room and you only have about a foot of clean floor and everything else is covered in the trash but you aren’t allowed to clean your room, your parents have to. They clean a bit of it but then get tired and take a break, while taking a break your siblings throw even more trash in your room basically taking all the work your parents did and throwing it out the window. That’s what it’s like for sea and marine life because of all the trash in the ocean. They can’t clean their waters so they have to rely on humans to do so but the number of people who don’t really care whether our oceans are clean or not outweigh the number of people who try to save the sea. With every step forward humanity takes 2 steps back. You see, for things to actually set in for the basic human you have to put it in terms where they would be directly affected, if you don’t…then the average person will act like the problem doesn’t exist. And I’m not saying to completely change your life, like becoming vegan and being one with the Earth, but I am saying that if you change the little things you can help fix the bigger picture.

The intervention art that inspired me to dive deep into this topic was ‘Homeless Vehicle’ by Krzysztof Wodiczko, him using actual homeless people to bring his artwork to life brings in a raw and authentic feeling to the work. He could’ve used paid actors to bring to life what he envisioned but he wanted it to feel closer to home, so why not use the people who would be affected the most with this creation: the homeless. So seeing the impact he had on the homeless community and those around it inspired me to use real fish. 

“Activists across the world reconceived their practices in reaction to the changing political climate,” (PG15). To be an activist doesn’t mean you have to be an artist, you just have to be a person with a purpose worth fighting for. I am fighting for the voiceless, for those who can’t speak up for themselves. We can be the change today that saves the world tomorrow, with one reusable water you save on 1,460 plastic water bottles on average a year. If you switch from nonvegan to vegan and cruelty-free you save hundreds of animals, small switches make the biggest difference. But if we keep on the path we’re on by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish. From my project, I hope people take away that the little things matter, every change you make today helps change the world tomorrow.