Earth Circles Online Exhibition

What’s Next For Earth’s first project is “Earth Circles”, a celebration of Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary
in the time of a pandemic.


During the month of April 2020, people around the world were experiencing the confinement due to COVID19. Earth Day Celebrations were cancelled. It was a striking realization that, the exploitation of wild lands and its animal populations can spread deadly diseases that are potentially unstoppable. If nothing else COVID19 showed us how fragile our interconnected civilization is.

What’s Next for Earth invited artists on Instagram to reflect on this special celebration that we could call a wake up call if we did not have many wake up calls before.

Artists

Shannon Amidon, Claude Benzrihem, Marianne Bickett, Lacey Bryant, Kathi Cambiano, Jeanne Corso, Andrea Dawn, Rena Ekmanis, Goldfish Creative, Michele Guieu, Ann Holsberry, Leah Jay, Kriill, Evelyne Maubert, Julie Meridian, Eric Meyer, Carol Newborg, Sailev, Alise Sheehan, Ivan Sigg, Anna Stump

.

Exhibition

Coronavirus

Oil on canvas

The pandemic is a human tragedy and a huge test for the medical world. But it is also a watershed moment for curbing the global wildlife trade that is driving extinction and disease spread. Give a chance to a whole world of crawling and flying creatures.
‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ – Gandhi
Now #stayhome and chill
2020
  • Sailev

Earth on Earth

Hipstamatic
Mission San Juan Bautista

2020
  • Kathi Cambiano

Tell it to the bees

Encaustic
6” Diameter

As an encaustic (beeswax & damar resin) artist, I am keenly attuned to the bond between art and nature; honeybees produce the wax I use for my encaustic paint. My artwork places a particular focus on the decline of pollinators and other insects due to the loss and destruction of their habitats. I think it is so important to bring attention to these devastating ecological challenges.
2020
  • Shannon Amidon

Net Doughnut

Recycled materials & acrylic paint

Inspired by Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics, created at the @fishfactoryis in Stödvarfjördur, Iceland, 2018. The work echoes an open water fish farm, taking data points from Icelandic fisheries data out of context to render them incoherent.

What’s next for earth could be building an economy that respects planetary boundaries, with sustainable fisheries, a respect for science, and safety nets to protect the most vulnerable. So great to see Kate Raworth talking at the Aotearoa Town Hall this week… the doughnuts are coming!
2020
  • Goldfish Creative

Happy earth day!

Painting

I put the world in a cup of tea for my friend’s earth day project,
2020
  • Lacey Bryant

Untitled

Painting on found object

2020
  • Anna Stump

An Unexpected Human Pause

Drawing

An unexpected human pause for Earth Day’s 50th anniversary is giving us a view we don’t often see. I sketched tree rings here for @whatsnextforearth as a beautiful view that can only be seen from growth suddenly stopped. There’s always new growth trying from the same roots. And there’s a tiny heart at the center of it.
2020
  • Julie Meridian

The Alchemy Of Cures

mixed media painting

Day 13. Today is dedicated to our scientists, hard at work on a vaccine, looking everywhere for that powerful combination of elements. Let’s all pray and visualize that today is the day they strike gold and find the cure.
2020
  • Alise Sheehan

Untitled

Drawing

Day 18 - Met a spider yesterday, a really nice one, she’s a web designer! Drum roll. Lol. Yup, today is about humor :) I got annoyed with my husband last night and asked him to take the dog for a walk, make it a long walk, off a short pier :) I laughed, he laughed and this morning we are still laughing about that. It was perfect timing. We could have gone the other way and gone from annoyance to argument but the laughter saved us. Comedians (I’m not one clearly :) have made us laugh right at the moment where they enlighten us about something so absurd and sometimes awful about ourselves that it’s actually funny. We see it, we laugh, we can now change. Sending love to all the Comedians today- thank you for your important work. There’s another powerful Native American creation story about Grandmother Spider, she leads us into the next world. Google “Grandmother Spider”.
2020
  • Alise Sheehan

She Is Our Future

Drawing

Long live earth mother. She is the kindest warmest most giving mother any of us have ever known. She deserves that love back for all she gives.
2020
  • Erica Atreya

Untitled

Ink and paint on paper

This is my take on a Tree of Life. I’ve included species that are both on the endangered species list and ones that are not on it yet. The trajectory we are on now will certainly cause even plentiful species to become endangered or extinct. I hope Covid-19 is a wake-up call, not only for our own health but the health of our planet as well.
2020
  • Stacie B Greene

Prendre en compte les limites de la planète
Take into account the limits of the planet

Drawing

2020
  • Evelyne Maubert

Untitled

Digital collage

Cycles of death and rebirth on the planet we call earth,
The rise and fall of the myriad of sentient beings,
Our breath gives us witness,
And in our death, we return to the One.
2020
  • Jeanne Corso

Undescribed Foraminifera

Drawing

This work shows some interesting, undescribed foraminifera which are in parallel with the scope of my scientific work. Long, thread-like, or pod-like, soft-shelled forams are distributed in the oceans worldwide. Their taxonomy is poorly studied, and currently, they are lumped into genera Nemogullmia, Shepheardella, and Tinogullmia. According to SSU rDNA gene phylogeny [blue branching pattern in the center], many of these forams fall into two sister groups ‘G’ and ‘TIN’.

As evident from the image, some of these guys are masters of entanglement, thanks to their slender shape and (!) two maws [apertures] on either end of the tube-like cell. E.g. the red “Gordian knot” in the upper left is made by several red Shepheardella which were isolated from the Gulf of Eilat, Israel. The gold cell in the right part is shown with its pseudopodial network (granuloreticulopodia) expanded.

The “infinity sign” is based on the real photo of one White Sea isolate, conveniently demonstrating that the existence of these delicate lifeforms predates humans and will likely continue no matter what, forming the basis of life with other unicellular eukaryotes. Yet, in order to explore and document species in the most sensitive habitats, we must prevent the loss of biodiversity due to industrial activities (e.g. polymetallic nodule mining in the Deep Sea) or Climate Change.
2020
  • Ivan Voltski

Earth

Watercolor and white ink on card, 2" x 2"

The Earth is as unique and complex as a fingerprint, and I envision it being preserved eternally, for it is priceless in value.
2020
  • Leah Jay

Flourish

Watercolor

If it only could happen, that during this pause,
we listen (when humanity withdraws)
to birdsong, quiet, the howl and the breeze,
and know Earth as priceless, and everyone sees
From moss, to fern, to loftiest pine
the sinuous dance of the clambering vine
the scaly, the shelled, the mushroom and mold,
the bee and the salamander, fragile and cold.
Could this be the day we find ourselves able
to set down our plates, step away from the table
The feasting is over, we’ve all had our fill
and Life’s story, unfinished, flourishes still.
2020
  • Leah Jay

Untitled

Pour réaliser cette composition, j’ai superposé plusieurs calques, images de dessins, de peintures, d’éléments numériques. J’ai modifié leur ordre, leur mode de fusion, leur interaction colorimétrique jusqu’à trouver un équilibre qui me semble juste. Cette image, dans sa globalité, ne peut exister que parce qu’elle est l’addition de tous ces éléments, chacun d’eux y trouvant une place indispensable. Chacun y a sa lisibilité, sa nécessité, même minime…

To make this composition, I superimposed several layers, images of drawings, paintings, digital elements. I changed their order, their blending mode, their colorimetric interaction until I found a balance that seemed right to me. This image, as a whole, can only exist because it is the addition of all these elements, each of them finding an indispensable place in it. Each has its readability, its need, even minimal …
2020
  • Eric Meyer

Untitled

Pour réaliser cette composition, j’ai superposé plusieurs calques, images de dessins, de peintures, d’éléments numériques. J’ai modifié leur ordre, leur mode de fusion, leur interaction colorimétrique jusqu’à trouver un équilibre qui me semble juste. Cette image, dans sa globalité, ne peut exister que parce qu’elle est l’addition de tous ces éléments, chacun d’eux y trouvant une place indispensable. Chacun y a sa lisibilité, sa nécessité, même minime…

To make this composition, I superimposed several layers, images of drawings, paintings, digital elements. I changed their order, their blending mode, their colorimetric interaction until I found a balance that seemed right to me. This image, as a whole, can only exist because it is the addition of all these elements, each of them finding an indispensable place in it. Each has its readability, its need, even minimal …
2020
  • Eric Meyer

Fragile Blue Marble

Cyanotype and ink on paper20" × 20"

2020
  • Ann Holsberry

Shelter in Place Day 27

Sunprint, digital manipulation

This morning, listening to “Académie du Monde d’Apres” (Academy of the World After) “For the first time in my life, I am witnessing this reversal: the economy, the obsession with its growth, has jumped from its pedestal, it is no longer the measure of relationships nor the supreme authority. Suddenly, public health, the security of citizens, an equal right for all, is the only and imperative watchword.” Erri De Luca [Le Samedi de la Terre]
2020
  • Michele Guieu

Earth Day 2020 – Endangered marine life species

Watercolor acrylics and photoshop.

From top clockwise
– hectors dolphin (endangered)
– baiji (extinct)
– finwhale (endangered)
– southernbluefintuna (critically endangered)
– greenseaturtle
– vaquita (critically endangered)
– rightwhale
– polarbear
– narwhal
2020
  • Rena Ekmanis

Untitled

Drawing

The Coronavirus has changed us and gives us the chance to plant seeds of change. Maybe we could plant a tree for every person who has perished because of the pandemic. I chose a less used view of the earth (looking up towards Africa) because I thought it a nice change from the typical N America view and to emphasize the fact we are a planet comprised of mostly water. We need to address plastic pollution that is in our water and in our bodies. Maybe the Coronavirus can be the catalyst for us to find a new way, for us to bloom. Our earth is unique and our time here is so limited. Why not seize the moment to rethink how we are living? The Coronavirus is a whole world problem, we are connected by our suffering and our ability to work together to remedy the catastrophe we have created. There is yet great Hope! Thank you!

The analogy between a depleted body and a depleted earth is not far out connection. Quality of life on earth suffers as we deplete our planet of fossil fuels, fish, forests, and on and on. But always, always, there is hope if enough of us become truly aware of the crisis and take meaningful action. This “book” never needs to be published!!
2020
  • Marianne Bickett

Backyard Mandala

Ephemeral composition (Leaves, flowers), digital photograph

Let me play in the garden along with the bees and the blooms- life at its simplest and most complex.
2020
  • Carol Newborg

L’art du confinement #8 : Earth Day

Lightpainting for Earth Day.
Thank you to Kriill band for your song “Brittany”.

Our lungs are burning, our house is burning, our planet is burning. My creativity is on fire, what about you?

The art I create during the lockdown: every evening I offer to my neighborhood and the caretakers of Bichât Hospital an animated digital painting on the facade of the neighboring building.
2020
  • Ivan Sigg

Earth Day 2020

I wish for humankind to live in harmony with nature. I wish for all of us to learn about how each of our daily choices may affect the natural world. I wish for everyone to grow more plants whether it’s inside their homes, outside in pots or in a community garden.
I wish for all children to hold onto the magic they find in nature as they grow older.
I wish for adults to remember the magic they used to see.
I wish for less destruction and more compassion.
I wish for more love.
2020
  • Andrea Dawn

Bottom-up for Earth

Digital image
Photo @ikasamami /AFP design

2020
  • Claude Benzrihem

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