What’s Next for Earth is a Community Art Project to reflect on the COVID19 period and re-invent the future: normal was the problem. What’s Next for Earth posts a call for art every month on Instagram. "How Are You Doing?" is What's Next For Earth’s sixth project.
After months of lockdowns, confinements, and experiencing fundamental changes in the way most of us live and work, the summer of 2020 brought more uncertainty and more questions concerning our future, with many people experiencing climate change events, like heat waves and fires in Caliofrnia. 2020 is taking a toll on people’s mental health and, as we have entered uncharted territories in term of interconnections between environment, economy, energy and equity, we need to be able to rely on each other more than ever.
During the month of August 2020, artists on Instagram were invited to answer the question “How are You Doing?” by posting an image and a caption on their Instagram page. Contributions were reposted on What’s Next forEarth’s Instagram page. Here is a selection.
Collections cb design (Paris,France)
Instagram: @collections_cbdesign
Comment ça va? How are you doing? ¿Que tal?
La vraie bonne question de cet été 2020.
The real good question for this summer 2020.
Collections cb design (Jardin des Plantes, Paris, France)
Instagram: @collections_cbdesign
Comment ça va? Ça vaut le coup de poser et de se poser la question.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, naturaliste inventeur de la Théorie de l’Evolution à l’air dubitatif.
How are you doing? It’s worth taking a break and asking yourself the question. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, naturalist inventor of the Theory of Evolution in a dubious air.
Deborah Kennedy (Bay Area California, US)
Instagram: @deborahkennedyart
This is a detail of a drawing I made during last year’s traumatic fires in California. Sadly California is burning again. I have been an avid backpacker and hiker all my life. It is heartbreaking to see so many places I have loved burning so fiercely. The indigenous people who lived here did “forest gardening.” They burned out the undergrowth during the wet seasons. After decades of fire suppression, there is too much fuel in our forests, making the fires so hot and persistent. (Rakes are not going to fix this!) Also, recent research has revealed that our life-giving California fog has decreased by 33% in the last hundred years. We were told this was coming by climate scientists, when will we listen and respond?
Stacie B Greene (California, US)
Instagram: @staciebgreene
‘Head in the Clouds”
Digital photo
The fogginess that comes from the uncertainly of this time and the cautious optimism that things will change in the next few months.
Ivan Sigg (Paris, France)
Instagram: @ivansigg
How are you doing?
How am I doing?
I take care of my zombie mom. I recreate a complex ecosystem by making a vegetable mound. I write my speech of the bride’s father. I transpose UBU of Alfred Jarry in our crazy world before the French presidential elections of 2022. I share my interests everywhere for vegetarian cuisine, for Artemisia plant and for all atypical researchers.
In these 15 automatic micro sketches, I give free rein to my creativity and my inner bubbling. It is at the same time: a plastic meditation, pure research, and daily « piano scales » necessary not to let the eye-hand loop go numb.
Je m’occupe de ma maman zombie. Je recrée un écosysteme complexe en réalisant une butte en permaculture (Merci Philip Forrer). J’écris mon discours du père de la mariée. Je transpose le UBU d’Alfred Jarry dans notre monde foutraque, en vue des élections présidentielles de 2022. Je partage partout mes intérets pour la cuisine végétarienne, la plante Artemisia et pour tous les chercheurs atypiques.
Dans ces 15 micro croquis automatiques, je laisse libre cours à ma créativité et à mon bouillonnement intérieur. C’est à la fois de la méditation plastique, de la recherche pure, et des gammes quotidiennes pour ne pas laisser s’engourdir la boucle oeil-main.
Cynthia Fusillo (Barcelona, Spain)
Instagram: @cynthiafusillo
How Are You Doing?
I am Listening, Surrendering, and Building a New Home (inside and out).
Wall installation 250cm x 260cm, mixed media.
Marianne Bickett (Oregon, US)
Instagram: @mariannalmaremoments
“How Are You?” / August’s Art Call / submission number 1
How Are You? The boundaries between inner self and outer world blur. I am a part of this river of life, a voyager through time and space on a beautiful planet. How am I? Every day I take refuge in my connection to life; and through daily meditation I find my anchor that keeps me from being swept away by the emotions so palpable in the world. I strive to
b r e a t h e when fear arises, and always always come back to Love. How am I? I feel change afoot, I float, I swim, and when I feel I’m sinking, I lift my head up out of the current and feel Gratitude for being here.
Marianne Bickett (Oregon, US)
Instagram: @mariannalmaremoments
“How Are You?” / August’s Art Call / Submission number 2
How are you?
Reaching…letting go and holding on.
A third mysterious arm and hand appeared (upper left corner) when Brian took this photo of me raising my hands in front of a shadow from the window on our wall.
Reaching towards the light, looking into another realm, I am reminded every day is sacred. Without our shadows, we would not see the definition of ourselves. We need our shadows and they need us to see them and own them so we don’t project onto others. How am I? I am here and I am Whole.
Janis Selby Jones (Vista, California, US)
Instagram: @janisselbyjones
On a scale of plastic, how are you doing today?
In March, all work-related meetings moved on-line, and facilitators had to find new ways to gauge the comfort and interest levels of participants. I have been in several Zoom calls that began with “On a scale of a cat, how are you feeling?” memes. These humorous check-ins can relax the audience while allowing the presenter to acknowledge that some people might be feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
So now, I sincerely want to know how you are doing. Please check-in by choosing the plastic face that expresses how you are feeling. Then add the corresponding number to the comments and explain why you picked it.
By sharing our current states of being along with what makes us happy and gives us hope, and by expressing our deepest fears and things that make us angry, we can lift each other up and support one another during these uncertain times—and beyond.
“On a Scale of Plastic” was made with unaltered plastic debris found on North County San Diego beaches.
Carol Newborg (California, US)
Instagram: @carolnewborg
Happy to share that my work was selected for exhibition at Platform 3 in Tehran, Iran! “Emotional Numbness: The impact of war on the human psyche and ecosystems” September-October 2020. Co-curated by Minoosh Zomorodinia and Atefeh Khas for Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD Artists).
“World Wind Map- Storming Everywhere Now”
Burnt paper, 9” x 10.5”
This time of environmental storms, political storms, and our CA firestorms makes this piece feel more relevant every day.
Eric Meyer (Paris, France)
Instagram: @eric_meyer
Toujours un peu à la limite du déséquilibre.
Always a little on the edge of imbalance.
Eric Meyer (Paris, France)
Instagram: @eric_meyer
En quête de sens, précisant le flou autour.
In search of meaning, clarifying the vagueness around.
Marie Cameron (California, US)
Instagram: @mariecameronstudio
More Rainbows, Fewer Fires 1 (top image)
More Rainbows, Fewer Fires 1 (Bottom image)
Found photograph, silk thread
3.5” x 3.5”
2020
Feeling so grateful for all the firefighters who have been battling our California fires!
Pascal Ken (Asnieres, Ile-De-France, France)
Instagram: @pascalken
APPEL D’AIR – breathe!
Collage on paper, 30x30cm acrylic
Where do we go? I am feeling confused sometimes, I need to breathe, to connect with trees and open landscapes, I need to feel the ocean.
Pascal Ken (Bourgueil, France)
Instagram: @pascalken
Inspiration – breathe 2
Walking on the grass. Flower power and music.
Photography 30x30cm
Cedric Lameignere (Paris, France)
Instagram: @cedric_lameignere
Le désir amène le projet, le projet amène la réalité. Transformer son intérieur amène une transformation générale. Le COVID nous amène un mouvement d’introspection. (Re)sortir avec un projet de transformation de maison amène une transformation dans sa vie (comme un déménagement – je pense à ma sœur).
Desire brings the project, the project brings reality. Transforming one’s interior brings about a general transformation. The COVID brings us a movement of introspection. Going out (again) with a house transformation project brings a transformation in our life (like a move – I think of my sister).
Lotte Van De Walle (California, US)
Instagram: @lotte_v.d.w
Gentle whispers in loud times — finding inspiration in our garden.
Miniature painting, gouache
Deborah Alastra (Oregon, US)
Instagram: @deborahalastra
Full Moon Reflections
30”x40”
Michele Guieu (California, US)
Instagram: @micheleguieu
California, August 2020. Feeling Overwhelmed, experiencing a raging early fire season in the midst of heat waves and the uncertainty of how the pandemic will evolve, mixed with the possibility of loosing our democracy. The outdoors (when accessible), the garden, keep me sane.
[Digital photo-collage: California fires, face mask discarded in the neighborhood, Purple Air map).
~ Michele Guieu, Eco-Artist, MAHB Member, and MAHB Arts Community coordinator ~