Jason deCaires Taylor

In 1968, the Virginia Dwan Gallery in New York hosted a ground breaking exhibition called EARTH WORKS that redefined the art world as it was known. This exhibition took art into new fields of materials, locations and scale, as the artworks it exhibited were built in and from the natural environment, but it did not necessarily include environmentalist responsibility. This came to be known as Earthworks or Land Art. The introduction of art that engages with, and addresses social issues such as poverty, addiction, capitalism or equal rights (to name a very few) brought forward another new field of artistic expression, where art has become a form of activism. We currently exist in a time of great environmental damage, where the destructive activities of industry and the daily consumptive habits of individuals, wreak environmental havoc on our planet. Each day, habitats are destroyed, whole species are lost and climate change alters the living conditions across the world. Small changes can be made that can ultimately have a big impact, the first step of which is bringing about environmental awareness of the conditions of the various ecosystems around the globe.