Sustainable development through the eyes of three artists. The materials they use, the impact of their works.

&ldquo;We are the species in danger of extinguishing everything,&rdquo; the graffiti warning on various walls in the city reflects an urgent problem. The play on words alludes to climate change and its consequences. There are many <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/art/paris-olympics-2024-peter-spens-artists-live-action-at-the-eiffel-tower" target="_blank" rel="noopener">artists</a> who, whether to think of utopias or dystopias in relation to this topic, reflect in their works on the impact of our actions on planet Earth, excessive consumption and the waste we generate, air and river pollution, recycling as a way of giving new life to discarded materials or even about possible futures where humanity lives. The Argentine critic and essayist Graciela Speranza says in her latest book, What we do not see, what art sees , that &ldquo;art cannot change the world but it can give material entity to metaphors, to the reconstruction of the past and to the imagination of a future.&rdquo;
The potential of artistic practice to consider and reconsider the world in which we live, but also the one in which we wish to live, is undeniable. Art allows us to deploy imagery and reflection, as well as questions and urgencies that function as a compass to orient ourselves and traverse, or glimpse, the possible changes in society. In this sense, the Argentine artist Elisa Insua engages directly with the concept of <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/portraits/kering-s-marie-claire-daveu-on-sustainability-in-fashion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sustainability</a> by creating works of art entirely from waste, provoking images of great visual magnetism. With a baroque style, she creates paintings, installations, assemblages and <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/estudio-laterna-art-gallery-ibiza-from-chaos-comes-order" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sculptures</a> that allude to excessive consumption. Her works invite us to approach and appreciate in detail dozens of waste, such as shampoo containers, bleach bottles, toys, candy boxes, markers, lighters, broken calculators, clothes pins and all kinds of elements that we classify as trash when they are no longer useful. The artist has a degree in Economics but never practiced the profession. However, many of the concepts learned in that career are present in her creations.
&ldquo;One of the principles of economic sciences states that the more we have, the better. My work attempts to take this axiom to the limits of excess and abundance with the aim of stretching it, questioning it and even challenging it,&rdquo; says Insua, who fuses concepts related to the economy, excessive consumption and human insatiability in his artistic practice. On August 10, he opens a solo exhibition at the Ac&eacute;fala gallery. There he will bring together a series of works that address issues related to mining, oil, extractivism and the use of so-called &ldquo;rare earths&rdquo; for the production of electronic devices. &ldquo;I seek to show, with a rather ironic tone, how creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin.&rdquo;

Another artist whose work engages with the concept of sustainability is Berlin-based Argentine Tomás Saraceno, who reflects on alternative and sustainable housing models for the future. He is known for his passion for spider webs and their intricate morphology, which serve as inspiration for his work, for example, the mobile sculptures Cloud Cities , but also for his “floating sculptures,” those immense black globes that are powered by solar energy and are part of his long-term project: to usher in a new era – the Aerocene – to replace the current one – the Anthropocene – marked by the destructive global impact left by man. One of his most notable projects, the film Fly with Pacha, into the Aerocene , documents the most sustainable flight in human history, that of the Aerocene Pacha balloon propelled only by air and the heat of the sun. It was made in 2020 in Salinas Grandes, Jujuy, in solidarity with the indigenous communities of the area and their protest against harmful lithium extraction practices in northern Argentina, as part of the Connect, BTS initiative. a project of exhibitions by artists from around the world, revolving around diversity, connection and communication. The film was screened at the art festival Radical Playgrounds: From Competition to Collaboration held at the Gropius Bau exhibition space in Berlin.

<a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/fashion/why-is-recycling-not-the-best-solution-for-sustainable-fashion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Recycling</a> is another of the great themes that occupies the imagination of contemporary creators, such as that of Kenyan Cyrus Kabiru. A self-taught artist, he is known for his elaborate sculptural glasses called C-Stunners, made from recycled materials and objects found on the streets of Nairobi. His playful glasses function as a metaphor for the power of creative transformation both within Africa and around the world. His artistic career is a story of reimagining and reinvention, giving a second life to waste through art while promoting sustainability.
"I try to change the world with my work, by recycling and showing the new generations that you can live if you protect nature. I save nature, and nature gives me something," says this artist who launched his Art of Recycle workshops at the Art Dubai 2022 fair and then expanded the program to eighty schools in the seven emirates. More than 4,500 students were invited to recover and reuse everyday materials from their homes and schools, to transform them into works of art and thus give them a new life. With his works, Kabiru has traveled to more than thirty countries and several have been incorporated into the African department of the Smithsonian Museum and exhibited, among other spaces, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

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