Kelsey Merreck Wagner
Warped Perspective
weaving made from yarn, string and plastic bags
40 x 14 in.
$500
Globalized capitalism has encouraged human production/consumption and subsequent waste practices that threaten the environments we live in. We are particularly drawn to the convenience and price of plastic materials, which we use and dispose of at an alarming rate: landfills are constantly filling to capacity, and a lack of a comprehensive recycling plan means many of our discarded goods inhabit our waterways, green spaces, and sacred earth.
This piece is at the nexus of aesthetics, anthropological inquiry of environmental ruin at human hands, and hope for socio-environmental justice. The weaving is made of a yarn warp, with plastic bags and recycled bits of string acting as the weft. The process of weaving abandoned mediums into a narrative of human/product/environment relations points to the complex web of ecology we live in, destroy, and seek to protect.
Now more than ever, we need leaders who will hold corporations accountable and expand environmental protections to encourage citizens to act as stewards of the planet. I am voting for environmental protections that will address capitalist consumption practices, reduce pollution and combat climate change, and conserve our precious lands and the animals and plants that live within them.
© Kelsey Merreck Wagner