Anna Ploeger - 2023

Artist's Statement

This is a multimedia piece that is 24” x 20” that consists of charcoal, acrylic paint, and ink. The words that I have running down the right side of the composition say, “There is no need to worry O planitis mas pethainei”. The text switches from English to Greek and ends up saying, “There is no need to worry, our planet is dying.” This represents how there are these real issues that will affect us in a big way, but it is being ignored. I put the important statement in another language so that it would be easy to look over in the viewers’ eyes. The only way to know what it says is to put in the effort to look up the translation, and the Greek statue depicted on the left is the only clue for you to know that the text is in Greek. We have grown complacent. We don’t see immediate effects on the planet from the systems we have implemented. It is so easy to forget about the effects of the Anthropocene on our planet and we have to put forth effort to really dig into research to gain knowledge on these subjects. The color choice of the letters was also very intentional. Having the first bit in white and the second bit, starting with “worry”, in red added another layer to the statement that I am making. If you only read the red text, it says, “Worry, our planet is dying”. It is not a coincidence that the statue is literally looking over those words.

In this class, I have learned that there is so much going on that I had no idea about. There are still people out there who do not believe that our systems have any effect on the planet. There are those who are misinformed and think that it is not a problem for now. Digging and research tells us that there are problems and that there are pathways to help fix them, we just need to put in our effort and actually change our culture.