Unit 5: Conscious Art (1ère AMC)

 The Blue Whale

The document under study is an article extracted from Albuquerque Journal, published in 2019. It is about a piece of art made out of plastic from two eco-artists from California.

This sculpture was created with polyethylene. This sculpture has the same weight and height as an adult blue whale. Indeed, the artists wanted people to be aware of the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean by creating a whale in plastic that represents the exact weight of used plastic found in the ocean every nine minutes.

The piece of art was exhibited for 6 months in San Francisco 2019, then, it would be exhibited in Santa Fe in 2020.

The name of this artwork is “Ethyl” because it comes from the material used to make it. The message is that this sculpture is considered as a real animal to be taken care of, it is referred to with the pronoun “she” in the whole article.  

This artwork was made by two artists who picked out and sorted recycled bottles, bags, milk jugs. They washed them and they melted them into tiles that they placed on a life-size whale frame.

The article suggests that art can share a message of anti-pollution and make people aware of environmental issues caused by plastic. People and companies should stop using single-use plastic but items made in recycled plastic that can last longer.

To conclude, the journalist’s tone seems to be a positive one towards the artwork as he is very supportive of the artists and their work.

Homework: Learn the lesson.