Eco Art Action
Artist:
Karen Cornelius
Program: Youth WITH ART
Location:
Medium: Stop Motion Animation
Date: 2015
Description
This Youth WITH ART Project is a collaboration between Manitoba Environmental Youth Network (MEYN) and artist Karen Cornelius, in which grade 12 Dakota Collegiate students were introduced to environmental issues through art-making. MEYN is the youth program of Manitoba Eco Network, a non-profit organization that promotes positive environmental action and facilitates environmental awareness and expands community connections.
More information about the Manitoba Eco Network, MEYN, and their projects can be found here.
Students were introduced to environmental issues facing Winnipeg and the wider world, and responded to the issues through workshops that used a variety of art-making mediums. Projects included using printmaking techniques to remap the local neighbourhood as a greener, more environmentally friendly place, and a collage project exploring what the students loved and hated about Winnipeg.
From there, the focus was narrowed to the tangible issues of water and waste, particularly plastic water bottle waste. The class collected all the plastic water bottles in their school for four months, and then counted them. The students each created an action figure to help respond to their concerns about these issues. They animated their characters in a comic strip, created a story board, and then brought their action figure to life using stop motion video animation. The students were encouraged to explore their own creative voice as they expressed their ideas and concerns about water, plastic bottles, and waste. The results are humorous and sobering, cautionary and hopeful.
Artist Biography
Karen Cornelius is a printmaker and new media artist. She sees her work contributing to an ongoing contemporary dialogue on identity and belonging.
Cornelius was born in the United States, grew up in the Congo, attended high school in Kenya becoming a Canadian citizen while living in Ottawa and now lives in Winnipeg following two and half years working and living in Eritrea, northeast Africa. She travels often engaged in projects related to her art practice which have taken her to China, Africa and Europe.
She has exhibited her work in numerous solo and juried exhibitions in Canada, United States, Europe, Africa and China. Her work has been purchased by the Canadian Art Bank, and is held in the National Archives of Canada, Abington Hospital in Philadelphia, Ernst and Young in Toronto, St. John’s College Winnipeg as well as corporate and private collections around the world.
Gallery
Video
Want Some Water, Deer?
By Jose Miguel Perez Aparicio
Synopsis:
A factory pops up in the middle of the forest and starts producing water bottles that, on their way to the river, destroy everything they find. A curious deer will follow them.
Video
When a Water Bottle is Recycled
By Nadia Garcia, Michael Lamont-Adam, and Sydney Pankratz
Synopsis:
Using white board drawings, we show the journey a water bottle takes from the factory to where it ends up, illustrating the many misconceptions of the positive effects of recycling.
Video
Wrath of the Water Bottle King
By Dominic Ramos
Synopsis:
A normal plastic bottle is transformed into the most destructive killing machine on the planet because the humans are polluting the environment.
Video
The Water Bottle Fairy
By Nosheen Qadi and Mikayla Stark-Pugh
Synopsis:
The magical Water Bottle Fairy grants one environmentally-friendly wish and in doing so becomes a better bottle herself!
Video
Saving the World One Bottle at a Time
By Kelsey Van Achte, Kaelin Van Achte, Stephanie Boyko, and Rylee Woods.
Synopsis:
Join the famous and powerful Blue Bottle as he cleans up the city and battles to recycle all the evil water bottles to make them good again.
Video
Revenge of the Living Plastic
By Saifemichael Alola
Synopsis:
An innocent bird is flying the streets of the future and is overwhelmed by the garbage humans discard. Damaged by fumes, the bird plummets from the sky into a pile of toxic plastic water bottles. The bird mutates into a monster and takes his revenge on the city.
Video
Penguins & Bottles
By Steven Liu
Synopsis:
Penguins move from one place to another because the ice is breaking up. The penguins have to swim with discarded plastic bottles. One penguin imagines that the floating bottles are other penguins.
Video
Miles Away
By Stephanie Zroback
Synopsis:
Plastic water bottles are used once in North America and then the plastic bottle trash is sent overseas to another country.
Video
Eco Art Action (Project Video)
By the Manitoba Environmental Youth Network, Dakota Collegiate students, and Karen Cornelius
Created through the Winnipeg Art Council's Youth WITH ART Program.
Video
Jack the Corporate Dragon Slayer
By Mitchell Addison, Dustin Garand, and Lucas Smook
Synopsis:
Jack, the average man, is upset that the corporations are controlling the water supply and creating plastic pollution so Jack becomes Jack the Corporate Dragon Slayer.
Video
A Water Bottle's Life
By Emily Kramer
Synopsis:
A discarded water bottle stays the same as the world changes over hundreds of years. Please think twice before you buy bottled water.
Video
Bottled Up (Project Video)
By the Manitoba Environmental Youth Network, Dakota Collegiate students, and Karen Cornelius
Created through the Winnipeg Art Council's Youth WITH ART Program.
Video
The Angry Entity from Garbage Island
By Leandra Brandson
Synopsis:
A beast born of trash emerges from the depths of Garbage Island to take revenge for his polluted aquatic abode
Video
DRIP
By Jayde Lazarenko
Synopsis:
A water droplet is contained within a cage, representing corporate power. Trapped, the water droplet is controlled along with our free water.
Video
Dangerous Waters
By Ashley Rebillard
Synopsis:
A fish with super powers saves a bird from choking on a plastic water bottle cap. If we don't dispose of plastic water bottles properly then animal's lives are at risk.
Video
Plastic Bags in our Ocean
By Somto Kingsly Anyadike
Synopsis:
A plastic bag floats helplessly in the ocean, calling for help. Superhero Green Man flies to the rescue, inhaling the bag out of the sea and using his fiery breath to recycle the plastic bag into a reusable plastic cup.
Video
Attack on Salad
By Eric Kewley
Synopsis:
A farm of peas and carrots is infested with bugs. The farmer sprays his crop and the chemical run off goes into the river killing the fish.
