Sustainability and other green topics have become an even greater issue for the entertainment industry in subsequent decades, and planning for a number of star-studded 50th anniversary Earth Day celebrations was well underway when the coronavirus pandemic shut down large gatherings in the U.S. and beyond. Festivities have been cancelled or moved online.
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I wasn't aware that Earth Day had only been around since 1970. Given how important the Earth should be to those that inhabit it it's surprising that its day of recognition only came about 50 years ago. Mother's Day came around in the 1910s and isn't Earth and nature kind of the mother of humanity? Anyways, I digress. One person that's really pushing the envelope on creating a sustainable future is bio-architect Neri Oxman. To call her just a bio-architect is not doing her justice. As a professor at MIT she runs a research lab that introduces all kinds of new materials and projects to the world. An interesting thing about what her lab does is that they often introduce their products as art rather than science. This allows them to receive less criticism from skeptics as they hash out their designs and troubleshoot. Her approach to bio-architecture is really fascinating and if you get the chance, her work is well worth looking into.
Happy earth day! Sustainability in the entertainment industry has always been something that I find incredibly interesting, as there are so many elements that do not always come to mind when thinking about how to make art environmentally conscious. Yes, building sets requires a certain amount of wood and oil-based paint which is detrimental to the environment and is difficult to be recycled, however, things that I always seem to forget about are the enormous amounts of electricity that it takes to light an entire stage or bring sound to an entire stage. This is a very interesting article simply regarding environmental awareness that surrounded the industry beginning, really, in the 1990s. This article also brings up the very interesting point that the environment truely remains indifferent to political beliefs or even countries' borders, as we all inherit the same planet and have the same responsibility to take care of it. Elena Keogh
It’s so lovely to have a day dedicated to the planet that we live on. Our environmental issues need to be addressed more because we’d be dead without it. (I also did not know the first Earth Day was in 1970...thought it has existed longer but it makes sense because mass production and the use of plastics took off in the 60s.) Now, sustainability in entertainment is a worthwhile topic to talk about, and it’s one that is not talked about enough. As we all know, we are pretty wasteful in the theater. Although we recycle our stuff as much as we do after a production, there’s still so much waste made. Our considerations with the design are based on budget (and the vision), but sustainability isn’t at the forefront of our concerns. I think the first step to making a change here is to spend a little time to figure out what to do with our stuff after the show’s over.
YAY EARTH DAY!! I’m so glad we have one day a year where all those Karens can post that one picture they took on their hike (it was just a walk up a hill to the resort’s nicer restaurant) during their spring break trip to Barbados. No, but seriously, Earth Day is a beautiful reminder of how horrible we humans treat this planet that we live on. I think it's wonderful that more media has begun to focus on the topic of protecting this Earth, but it is difficult to wholeheartedly embrace when we all know how wasteful the entertainment industry is. Film and theatre are two incredibly wasteful industries, and while the media they produce has environmentally-conscious themes, often the build and strike processes are wildly wasteful and there is very little being done to change that. It is hypocritical to advocate for people to be less wasteful and more conscious of how their lives impact the environment, while also creating the immense amount of waste considered “normal” in this industry.
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