Eleanor Noone

Creating Awareness

Computer Assisted Art

Destroying Our Oceans

My social issues artist I chose is Ai WeiWei. Ai makes incredible art while conveying a
specific meaning in each piece he creates. Born in Beijing, China in 1957, he is the son of a
Chinese poet who was denounced during the Anti-Rightist Movement. Ai and his family were
sent to a labor camp when he was one year old. They returned home after the cultural rights
movement. In 1981, he moved to the United States and lived mostly in New York City for the
next twelve years. He then moved back to China and married artist Lu Qing. He is a known
human rights activist and was jailed by the Chinese government in 2011. He is currently not
allowed to leave his home country and is constantly under surveillance by the Chinese
government.
Recently, he unveiled Trace a powerful new piece made up of portraits of political
prisoners and exiles from around the world. There are 176 different prisoners pictures featured
in this piece, and every single portrait is made of Lego bricks! A total of 1.2 million Legos were
used to create this piece that is formerly was at Alcatraz. Ai and the FOR-SITE Foundation
worked together to create an exhibit with seven installations that all express human rights in
some way. This part was created in 2014, and is a low-relief sculpture. Although he cannot leave
China, he sent assistants to California to help the volunteers put it together as he sent digital
blueprints online. Each portrait portrays a different color scheme including black and white or
complementary. Similar to Ai WeiWei, my poster also conveys an important social issue. I chose
killing sealife as the foundation for my piece because the ocean is my favorite place and to be
honest it is really upsetting that we are destroying all the beautiful living things inside. However,
one thing by itself is not completely the reason for its decline. When we spill oil, lose our
fishnets, or throw our trash in the water we are all contributing in a way we probably do not want
to. My poster creates awareness by using a play on words with the Disney animated film titled
Finding Nemo, and changing it to Saving Nemo. Also, I have trash floating in the water as well
as oil sitting at the top of the water and never going away. The really deep part of my art is the
dead fish floating around with the more transparent versions in the background representing all
the other fish who have already been victims of the now unreceptive oceans.
In conclusion, art can be used in a variety of ways, but the times it really hits us and
makes an impact is when it is about a topic people try to ignore or not talk about. The reality is
that we will have to confront the issues sooner or later, and I think it is very smart of artists to
incorporate these into their art so we will start a discussion about it. In order to raise awareness
about hard topics, we need to get creative, for example the Ice Bucket Challenge. Artists using
social issues as a foundation for art is just another sample of this in action. That is what I had in
mind when I created my artwork and examining Ai WeiWeis.