Artist
Vega Piper
Category
Consumerism
Medium
Collage
Date
November 28, 2023
This collage is meant to represent some of the feelings that arise when consumers are faced with the onslaught of advertisements and the idea that buying new things is what we can do to help save the planet. Each spiral is sharp and pointed with the inside spiral being almost fiery in nature.
Vega drew these with ink and colored pencils to represent the energy needed to create the material goods that are being marketed to save the planet. There are cut-outs of soldiers holding the American flag, and a small girl standing dejectedly looking in the corner. The girl represents the youth, and how the future can seem grim even to the smallest of us.
The soldiers are most often seen as a symbol of freedom in the United States but in this instance, Vega was inspired to use them as a marker of the opposite. She was reminded of the wars over oil and energy and the chokehold that these resources have on our nation.
Watching gas prices rise rapidly then fall, tariffs in the Middle East, and so on. In the very center of the work, which everything revolves around is the electric car. The heralded energy saver that brings with it its own set of problems. Marketed both through companies and even the government, with Washington state introducing tax credits up to $7500 if people make the switch from gas to electric.
Lastly, “Spiraling” contains two phrases pasted on top. “The race to save the planet” and “But no one was laughing now”, and one phrase is written in the background, almost unreadable. “No ethical consumption under capitalism.”
Vega felt these three sentences perfectly encapsulated how the climate crisis has changed in the eyes of the public, even within the last decade. What was once seen as dismissable and a world away has now come to our very doorstep.
Assets Used (Citations):
Image of soldiers: Joe Rosenthal, Flag Raising On Iwo Jima, 1945, photography.
Image of young girl: Lewis Hine, Girl Worker In Carolina Cotton Hill, 1908, film photography.
Image of electric car: Hyundai, IONIQ5 robotaxi, 2023, advertisement.