Jessica Moon Bernstein
My work is a response to the effects of globalization on the natural environment and ethnic cultures. As globalization threatens to overwhelm the world via consumerism and environmental degradation, the question of how we preserve ethnic identities and natural environments has become a significant issue in my thoughts and artwork. During my travels around the world and time living in Mongolia, I have become increasingly aware of the conflicting relationship between nature and culture. The viral effects of globalization are rapidly destroying unique ethnic cultures and replacing them with homogenized consumer based cultures that expel vast amounts of unnecessary waste in our environments where it will remain for countless generations.
Recycling is a way of mitigating the disturbing amount of waste created by mass production and consumerism. Working with mass-produced discarded materials, I attempt to express the increasing impacts globalization has on us as well as our environment. I look to the way our natural landscapes are being altered as they are blanketed by our endless waste and through this, I work to create thought provoking and humorous sculptures from the heaps of discarded inner tubes, tires, and plastic bags I choose to work with.
My inspiration rises out of the plethora of mundane materials we discard, re-composing what in nature may never decompose.
