Greenpeace has unveiled a collaborative art project with
well-known street artist Mark Jenkins to highlight the shared
plight of polar bears and humanity in the face of global
warming.
Jenkins, a D.C. based artist who creates sculptures primarily
from packing tape, has earned international recognition for his
street art installations, many of which feature astoundingly
realistic human figures.
For this series, Greenpeace and Jenkins added polar bear heads
and ragged clothing to these figures to dramatize how global
warming is making polar bears homeless by causing the sea ice they
rely on to melt, threatening the polar bear with extinction. The
fourth piece in the series, featuring a homeless bear foraging in a
trash can, was deployed Tuesday.
It coincided with an announcement by the National Snow and Ice
Data Center that Arctic sea ice has reached its second lowest
annual extent in recorded history. The Arctic sea ice has fallen to
a low of 1.74 million square miles in September, roughly 860,000
square miles below the long-term average. That’s an area of polar
bear habitat three times the size of Texas lost this summer as a
direct result of global warming,” said Carroll Muffett, Deputy
Campaigns Director for Greenpeace.
Our intent with this project was to communicate in human terms
how global warming is affecting the polar bear and to highlight the
very real connection between the polar bear’s fate and our own.
Rising tides and severe storms intensified by global warming are
already displacing people around the world, from Alaska to
Africa.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that
millions more will be displaced by global warming in the next few
decades as a result of rising sea levels, extended droughts, and
more extreme weather events that force migrations and make
returning home difficult or even impossible, as borne out by
Hurricanes Katrina and Ike.
“My intention with this project was to leverage my street
installations to promote awareness about the issue of global
warming and the plight of the polar bear,” said Jenkins. “It was
our shared goal that the public would develop empathy for the polar
bear as they have for the homeless, which we see as two connected
issues.
To date, four sculptures have been deployed throughout the
Washington, DC area, in locations chosen to reach a variety of
audiences and address different aspects of the global warming
crisis. One bear bore a sign reading “S.O.S.”, while a second was
accompanied by signs saying “Victim of Oil Addiction” and “Global
Warming Refugee. Help a brother out?” Greenpeace’s action
coincided with last night’s House of Representatives vote that
would further accelerate fossil fuel use and global warming by
allowing more offshore oil drilling.
“Just as we have delayed action to protect the polar bear, we
have too long delayed action to protect our own species from the
threat of global warming,” Muffett said. “The window for action is
closing rapidly. Yesterday’s vote on offshore drilling shut that
window still further. More offshore drilling will be bad for
Americans, bad for the polar bear and bad for the planet we share.
We hope this project helps people better understand that
reality.”
Other contacts: CONTACT: Jane Kochersperger, 202-319-2493/202-680-3798
Notes: For photos of previous bear deployments, visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/polarpicpool/
High resolution photos available at http://usaphoto.greenpeace.org/streetartpb/
