Green Up: Design Proposal for an Exhibition Exploring the Important Role of Communities’ Involvement in Sustainable Practices Through Art and Food

This paper presents a proposal for an exhibition on ecology to be staged in an urban park in Washington D.C.. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ecology as a science on “a branch of science concerned with the relationships between living things and their environment” but also “the pattern of relationships between living things and their environment.” The state of ecology today is a topic that everybody can relate to, on different levels of involvement. Four years ago, I took a class called “Cultural and Political Ecology” with Dr. Tony Abbott (Professor of Environmental Science and Studies) at Stetson University in Florida. This class introduced me to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962) and some of the discoveries of the Twentieth Century about ecology. The 1960’s were a time of expanding awareness of Earth’s connection to the universe (and its fragility), prompted in no small way by NASA’s first images of the Earth from the Moon. This class made me more aware of the role that communities play in the sustainable development. Since governments are slow to adapt consumerism and capitalism to the protection of our environment, people must take action. Today, communities’ role is more than ever crucial to the protection of our environment. The overuse of resources, pollution and climate change are issues that most of the world population is aware of. However, some people are not always prepared to do something about it. Many researchers explain that our generation is the one who has the power to help to save the Earth and that the next generations will not have this option.

Author

• Fontaine, Charlotte Leocadia Cyprien

Language

• en

Keyword

• Design
• Involvement
• Community
• Ecology
• Proposal
• Exhibition

Date created

• 2016

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Corcoran School of Arts and Design

Degree

• M.A.

Advisor

• Briggs, Nigel

Committee Member(s)

• Bernat, Cory
• Briggs, Nigel
• Brown, Clare

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/fn106z159