Emily Staley - 2021

Escaping the Air We Can't Breathe

This project was created to express a situation in which a person is trying to escape. In this representation, a girl is tearing her way through cardboard, her face is masked and blurred by a layer of polluted air. Her hands come through the layer, representing the clarity that comes from being closer, from escaping. What makes this piece meaningful is the movement that takes place within it. The girl is taking the necessary action to leave the place and circumstance of which she is in. Her pained face, drawn to appear as if gasping for air, is intended to portray the urgency to escape. Whether speaking of the polluted world we live in, or any other circumstance in the Anthropocene, we must each do our part and take action to get where we need to go. In order to see clearly, we must tear ourselves out of the blurred world we live in.

Black and white charcoal is the medium used in this project. The action-taking girl was rendered on cardboard, representing something mass produced - something that is all over the world. After it is used, it is typically turned into trash. The girls’ hands are drawn on a layer of frosted mylar which portrays the polluted air or the blurred circumstance she is in, which is left up to the viewers interpretation.