To commemorate Earth Day, you may wish to explore ways visual artists strive to reduce or critique humankind’s carbon footprint on the planet. Our library has a number of books on early artistic media such as assemblage and found objects in art – and more recent movements like environmental art and junk sculpture.
We have materials on particular artists working in these media, such as John Chamberlain, David Nash, Richard Long, Meret Oppenheim, and Joseph Cornell. And, some recent general books that you might find interesting include: The Art of Recycling in Kenya, Trash Formations East, Designing America’s Waste Landscapes, and Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary.
For movie buffs, let’s not forget the animated soon-to-be-classic Wall-E!
If this subject is pertinent to your research interests, you may wish to explore the databases on the Art History Research Guide and the Earth & Environmental Sciences Research Guide to find scholarship about environmental issues – from an aesthetic viewpoint or otherwise.
Happy Earth Day!