1. The role of Public Art in Environmental Movements
TANAYA LAL

2. THE URBAN RIVER
In April, 2007 Henk Hofstra created an "urban river" in
Drachten, The Netherlands. The Blue Road installation is
an example of what mind-blowing urban public art can
be.

3.  Featuring 1000 metres of road painted blue and
the phrase "Water is Life" written in eight-metre-
high letters across it, the Blue Road is
reminiscent of the waterway that used to be
where the road is now. It's a memorial to nature,
but it's also just plain awe-inspiring. There's
even a few cool tidbits along the road, like a
sinking car.
 The project took 4000 litres of paint and cost
75,000 Euros. Half of the cost was covered by
municipal funds. Hofstra wants the road to be
visible on Google Earth, but it hasn't shown up
yet
.

8.  Very simple and low cost urbanistic gesture to
reinforce the street as a space and a place.
 Hofstra paints everything blue and "cars in the
canal" is a little too easy and contradicts the canal
metaphor, but provides for some populist
photographic opportunities.

13. PLUNGE

14. Artist Michael Pinsky launched PLUNGE in London
on 7th February 20120. Plunge exists in three areas
in London, where blue neon rings encircle three
London columns: the Sundial pillar in Covent
Garden, the Duke of York column, and the
Paternoster Square column next to St Paul's
Cathedral and the London Stock Exchange.

16.  Plunge is billed as “a simple, elegant statement
placed on three monuments in central London”. In
reality, it’s blue bands of light around famous
monuments. Each line represents the estimated sea
level 1000 years in the future.
The bands are 28 metres above sea-level, “at which
Central London would be clearly and visibly different,
including the partial submersion of some of the city’s
most historic and iconic monuments and buildings.”
There are three rings across London, all on iconic
landmarks at the end of great views.

18.  The project is intended to highlight the issue of
rising sea levels, with the blue rings illustrating
how high sea levels will have climbed (28
metres) in a thousand years' time, should we fail
to heed the threat of global warming.
PLUNGE has been created by Michael Pinsky and
produced by Artsadmin and LIFT (London
International Festival of Theatre) as part of the
Imagine 2020 network programme

20. INSERT HERE
By EVE MOSHER

22.  "Insert__Here" is an interactive public art project
conceived by Eve Mosher and realized with 350.org.
The project capitalizes on community awareness
of place and optimism around climate change
solutions. The project invites people to place bold
yellow "Insert_Here" arrows in locations in their
community where they want to "insert" a climate
change solution. For example "Insert bike lane Here"
"Insert community garden Here", "Insert solar panels
Here", Insert trees Here". By placing these arrows
along people's daily migratory paths, individuals and
groups can share their proposed solutions with the
greater community.

27. "The Invisible Man”
By Liu Bolin

28. China consumes more coal than any other country
in the world, using it for everything from electricity
and producing steel to deadly indoor heating and
cooking in some rural areas. With their unregulated
mines, China's coal mines are also fatal and
thousands of people a year die due to explosions,
cave-ins, and other disasters. Coal Pile is a
conceptual commentary on the consequences of
not only the dependence on coal, a limited
resource, but the dangers that come for families
who work with and use coal, ironically, to survive.

30. 350 EARTH

31.  TAKE A GLOBAL PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION SHOW, ADD A CLIMATE
CHANGE CONFERENCE, and you have…art for social change?
 That’s what organizers Bill McKibben and a group of artists hope for when
their climate change campaign, 350 EARTH, gets underway. Beginning
tomorrow, November 20, and every day through Nov. 28, groups around the
world will stage massive art installations to bring awareness and renewed
urgency to the climate change crisis.
 The installations take place in over a dozen cities, including in Europe, South
America, and seven locations in North America. Each project is large enough
to be visible by space, and will be photographed via satellite. The public can
sign up to participate in their city, or make their own art.
 Most of the art is developed along the line of “gather-enough-people to-form-
a-shape (or message)”: for example, a giant “350″ (representing the
optimum levels of parts-per-million of CO2 in the atmosphere); a green
footprint; or a polar bear created out of hundreds of red tents. 350.org says
aerial images will be made available and displayed at the latest climate talks
in Cancun starting on Nov. 29.
 McKibben says, “Art is not a substitute for political action, but it can help
build a public movement that can begin to apply real pressure.” Agreed—the
public’s opinion, backed up by action, is absolutely necessary to address
climate change.

32.  Likewise, the vision of these creative and ENORMOUS
art pieces can be seen all across the earth. The
significance 350 Earth seeks is to encourage artists and
individuals to create public art installations, which
symbolize the impact of climate change.
 Just imagine, an enormous art piece that can be
seen from space! The strong will of 350 EARTH
influences the role of art has an image of hope. Most
importantly, the inspiration towards humanity is
encouraging to provide protection and beauty towards
our everlasting planet.
 I do believe this 350 is effective in creating awareness
all over the world. From India to New York, people are
encouraged to promote awareness rather through word
or art. Throughout dozen locations seen across the
world, amazing artists are working together with local
communities to create art, which emphasizes a local
climate change challenge or solution

33. SCARAB 350
 Egyptians joined the 350 campaign to create art
and demand bold climate action

34.  In the Egyptian desert landscape of Wadi Natrun,
200 students and activists worked in the blistering
heat to send a message to world leaders heading to
Cancan for the latest climate conference. Placing
large black strips on the ground and using florescent
jackets, the image of a scarab holding a sun with
350. inside slowly emerged and could even be seen
from space. The enormous scarab was a call for
leaders to agree to a fair and effective climate deal
and also symbolized the potential of solar power as
a renewable resource to power Egypt’s future

36. CLIMATE 350 @NEW DELHI

37. CLIMATE 350 @
SANTO DOMINGO
 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. On behalf of
350.org, DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-1 satellite took
this 50-centimeter resolution image on November
21, 2010 from 300 miles up in space of young
people joining with community members forming the
image of a house being submerged by the rising
seas that threaten all island nations

40. CLIMATE 350@ ICELAND
 Red Polar Bear Iceland – Artist Bjargey Ólafsdóttir
created a “Red Polar Bear” on the Langjökull Glacier
in Iceland as part of the 350 EARTH planetary art
show. The image is painted with red organic food
dye approved for environmental use

43. FLASH FLOOD @ SANTA FE
 “Flash Flood” by Santa Fe Art Institute. The Santa
Fe, New Mexico, EARTH event, showed how the
Santa Fe River could look if there was water running
through it. The Santa Fe River is one of the 10 most
endangered rivers in North America. Santa Fe, New
Mexico, USA on November 20, 2010. Girl Scouts,
church groups and thousands of local citizens stood
in a dry riverbed to recreate where the Santa Fe
River should be flowing. As global warming leads to
higher temperatures and a reduced snow pack, the
river, which provides 40% of Santa Fe’s water, is
drying up

46. 350 COOL ROOF@ NYC
 “350 Cool Roof” by Molly Dilworth — New York City,
USA. In New York City, USA, artist Molly Dilworth,
famous for painting a mural in the new Times Square
Plaza, created a “Cool Roof” for a school by painting
a lightly colored representation of the New York and
New Jersey coastline after a 7 meter rise in sea
levels

48. GAL LA @ SPAIN
 “Gal·la” by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada — Delta del
Ebro, Spain. Citizens from the Delta del Ebro region
joined renowned urban-artist Jorge Rodriguez-
Gerada to form a giant representation of the face of
a young girl who wishes to see the Delta survive the
threat of climate change.

51. SOLAR EAGLE @ LOS
ANGELES
 Solar Eagle is third in a series of images, dating back to
the Arctic, 2005. On Earth Day 2005, Inuit elders issued a
warning to humanity from the sea ice off of Baffin Island,
Canada, about the urgent dangers of global warming.
The image of an Inuit Drum Dancer was accompanied by
the words ‘Arctic Warning’ and the word ‘Listen’ in
Inuktitut. In January 2007, the school children of Park
City, UT responded with an image that included a Bear
Drum with the words, ‘We Hear You,’ in Inuktitut,
accompanied by ‘Step It Up.’ This launched the Step It
Up campaign, Bill McKibben’s first large-scale activism
project which later led to the international 350.org project.
The Solar Eagle is accompanied by the words, ‘Well
Being’ in Inuktitut, which means ‘Harmony, Balance &
Health’ and is the Goal of our global efforts

54. 350 @ AUSTRALIA

55. HUMAN HURRICANE @
MEXICO