Student Worksheet

Thought-starter: What is environmental art?

Broadly speaking, environmental art can be broken down into several loose categories:

Art that describes the natural world;
Art that celebrates personal engagement in the natural world; and
Art that directly addresses environmental issues (sometimes known as ‘ecological art’ or eco-art’).

It also seems that much environmental art is ephemeral, being made to disappear or transform, much like aspects of the natural environment, or is designed with a particular place in mind. Increasingly, environmental art is a collaborative effort between the artists, scientists, or community groups.

According to the website greenmuseum.org, some environmental art:

"Informs and interprets nature and its processes, or educates us about environmental problems;
Is concerned with environmental forces and materials, creating artworks affected or powered by wind, water, lightning, even earthquakes;
Re-envisions our relationship to nature, proposing new ways for us to co-exist with our environment; and
Reclaims and remediates damaged environments, restoring ecosystems in artistic and often aesthetic ways."

Looking at environmental art

Work in small groups or pairs to analyse the following environmental artworks. Answer the questions below each artwork.

1. Tiny melting ice men sculptures by Nele Azevedo