6 Artists to meet on International Wildlife Day

Credit Photographic World Portuguese

international wildlife day
Every year, on March 3rd, World Wildlife Day is celebrated, to draw attention to the “moral obligation” to preserve the Earth, from which essential products for human survival are extracted.
UN chief Guterres stressed that wildlife is in danger, recalling that damage to the natural world ultimately threatens the existence and well-being of all individuals. A quarter of the world's species face extinction, largely because humans have destroyed nearly half of all the ecosystems in which they live. Guterres called for an immediate reversal of this situation. This year, World Wildlife Day highlights the importance of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which runs from 2021 to 2030. The head of the United Nations recalls that ecosystems can only be considered healthy when their components flourish. A key element can lead to the decline and disappearance of the entire ecosystem. Therefore, actions to protect individual species must be aligned with restoring ecosystems.More than 1 million species are threatened with extinction, of which 8,400 species of wild fauna and flora are critically endangered and almost 30,000 are classified as endangered or vulnerable. Furthermore, the world is facing unprecedented levels of threats, which pose a real risk to biodiversity, ecosystems and human health. In addition to a number of emerging diseases arising from animal products, both domestic and wild.

Who are the artists who have been sharing sustainability messages in their works?

Bordalo II
Plates, computer keyboards, bicycle tires are some of the objects chosen by Bordalo II for the production of his works. Artur Bordalo, grandson of the artist Real Bordalo, was born in 1987 in Lisbon. In homage to his intrinsic artistic roots in the family, he chose the name Bordalo II. This young artist has been resorting to the use of objects abandoned on city streets for his artistic production. Waste, namely plastic, metal and electronic materials, became compositional materials, which are transformed and shaped by the artist in the form of an animal. The choice of these materials is Artur Bordalo's way of criticizing the way we live today. Waste, materialism, our own consumerism and the urgent need for sustainability are the themes addressed in their installations.

Diário de Notícias Photo Credits

Chris Jordan
Photographer Chris Jordan composes amazing photographs by rearranging common objects like bottle caps, light bulbs and aluminum cans. For example, the work “Plastic Cups”, is composed of 1 million plastic cups.

agnes denes
A pioneer in environmental and conceptual art, Agnes Denes planted a five-acre wheat field in Manhattan, just two blocks from Wall Street. More than 1,000 pounds of wheat were harvested and distributed to 28 cities.

Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy is a British artist known for creating beautiful outdoor sculptures from natural materials including petals, leaves, snow, ice, rocks and twigs. In the work “River Stone”, a serpent-shaped sculpture, built with 128 tons of sandstone recovered from the rubble of buildings in San Francisco, collapsed by earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. One of the few permanent works by Goldsworthy, can be seen at the University from Stanford.

Miguel Palma
Miguel Palma is a multifaceted Portuguese artist who produces his drawings, installations and transformations of objects, through the imagination of his childhood, his tastes for aviation, motorsport, science and engineering. His artistic production linked to the idea of technological development creates a critical and productive relationship with the spectator about consumerism and sustainability.

Vhils
Vhils sculpts the faces of anonymous figures on a large scale, in generally abandoned urban areas, in order to establish a dialogue about identity and the unsustainable behavior of humans. In addition to walls, tunnels and buildings, the Portuguese artist also transforms other objects - wooden doors, metal plates and advertising posters - using the same creative sculpting process: layer subtraction, roughing, drilling and immersion.