YOU

The project I am submitting for the Arte Laguna World competition does not have a single name, it is still ongoing and calculated for long-term activities. Initially named "YOU", in the course of my artistic activities it also takes on other names, such as NÃO, SOS. And this is not

an expression of indecision, but of conscious action within the intended creative actions.

This is because it is a complex process consisting of activist work with the local community, site-specific activities, and realizations on the verge of critical design with an empathetic technological tinge.

The sub-projects described below, which I have carried out as part of successive artist residencies (Gran Canaria, Brasil), are aimed at developing in the participants of properly organized beach clean-ups, through a process of collective engagement, the habit of paying attention

to microplastic pollution. By involving the local community, but also my seven-year-old daughter,

in the beach cleanup process, I aim to build healthy social attitudes. The beach cleanup process aims not only to develop some healthy habits, but also, through the meditative activity

of collecting plastic particles, to give a sense of meaningful use of energy for the benefit of the environment and healthy well-being. For more than three weeks, for a couple of hours a day, Mira and I, along with a group of volunteers, collected plastic, putting ourselves into a kind of calming trance born of patiently precise activities.

The first face of the YOU/NÃO/SOS installation, developed through public participation and made of more than 300 glass laboratory tubes filled with microplastic, is an expression of collective protest against plastic pollution of marine waters. It also shows our contribution to the degradation of the marine environment. The site-specific spatial inscription "YOU" followed by "NÃO" is the result of an action to clean local beaches of microplastic, organized by me during a 4-week art residency in Gran Canaria and then in Ilhabella (Brazil). Educating through active environmental action, I included my 7-year-old daughter in the initiative, as well as teachers and students from local schools.

Laboratory glass tubes are accessories used in conducting research on our bodies. Identifying with the environment, based on the assumption that humans are part of nature, I decided to use test tubes to collect ambient tissue and expose the disturbing contents of our habitat.

This is because more and more often we find foreign bodies in the composition of natural environmental structures as a consequence of irresponsible human actions on earth. The earth is us, and its components are increasingly plastic-type foreign bodies that resemble nature. Many marine animals die because they mistake plastic suspensions for food. The line between what is natural and what is not is increasingly blurred. As a result of irresponsible human actions, plastic is everywhere, even in food and in ourselves. One could say that we are becoming it.

YOU is an installation that on the one hand draws attention to this fact, and on the other manifests our responsibility for microplstic pollution. Its subsequent site-specific unveilings are oriented more towards a collective, activist expression of opposition to such a state of affairs (NÃO), as well as a cry for help (SOS).

Illumination of the problem is gaining momentum in the face of further creative activities using materials acquired during beach cleanup operations.

The cleanup campaign was followed by a realization of engaged design with an interactive character. Indeed, the collected materials were used to develop lamps in the shape of lighthouses. Lighthouses are used to mark navigational dangers which, when translated into the environmental situation in which humanity finds itself, is of vital importance.

The material contained in the tubes, collected during the residency, as well as activities in their own city, was then used to develop interactive lamps manifesting further messages: YOU, SOS, NÃO using a maritime code. Made from waste plywood and rake handles, the lamps use distance sensors to activate light messages generated using morse code.

The next step in developing the project is to transform the extracted plastic into a material from which new objects can be made, such as filament for a 3 d printer.

The goal of my activities as an artist-educator is to build environmental empathy, which is reflected, among other things, in my activities with students and the idea I developed for the exhibition "Empathic Design or Technological Concern for a Better Tomorrow."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82cOPEk-mqY

The overarching idea of the project, submitted to Arte Laguna World, is to organize more and more beach cleanups and build more and more light messages to humanity. In doing so, I wonder how many such lamps are needed to illuminate the microplastic problem? How many signals need to be generated to the public for the problem to be taken seriously?

Let's build an illuminated manifesto together, accentuate our expression of discontent through joint action.

https://www.dominikasobolewska.com/portfolio/nao/

https://www.dominikasobolewska.com/portfolio/yousos-lamp-2/

https://www.dominikasobolewska.com/portfolio/you/