Artist Statement

 Anthropocene /ˈanTHrəpəˌsēn/

(Adj). Relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. 

Growing up, I've always been fascinated with plants as I accompanied my grandma and mom to tend their garden every summer. I was in awe at the amount of care they put into it that allowed them to bloom beautiful bundles of roses, dahlias, chrysanthemums, etc. So with that love, I decided to look into the environment and how we as a society affect it, whether that be good or bad. I chose to focus on a very well known area plagued by social influence, the Amazon Rainforest, and took a closer look at how our choices have affect the environment there. Originally, I planned to have deforestation be the main topic at hand, but I took a left turn and looked into soil composition of the Amazon. Land use change, the repurposing and transfer of land from one ecosystem to another, was a common practice used by Brazillian farmers as they exchanged Amazon soil to fertilize their farm land. However, an adverse affect from this practice caused the microbiome of the soil to change. Methane-producing/consuming bacteria are extremely prone to land-use change, which effects the methane flux of the environment. Methane being a prominent greenhouse gas also affects environments globaly with climate change exponentially getting worse. Not only is the enviornmental climate of the Amazon changing, the politcal climate has been as well. Recent leadership and policy changes in Brazil such as PEC 65 on April 2016, which guarantees freedom to build without the need for an environmental license, have endangered environmental conservation and regulation. (Meyer).

For this project I built a paludarium to act as a small-scale version of the Amazon and have myself act as the representation of society. My actions will determine the health of the paludarium and its inhabitants, and the amount of effort I place into it will determine whether it thrives. Even the slightest change to the water parameters can cause one of the plants to die. I want to use this paludarium as a reminder to everyone as well as myself, that even the smallest of change can do so much.