Art Activism
Artist Annie Holland’s current work as an artist and photographer is primarily concerned with highlighting and addressing our single-use consumer culture. However she is only too aware that we as a society, are overwhelmed by media stories, with their sad images of death and choked oceans and it’s easy to feel as if individual and local actions won’t matter. An intellectual understanding of the scientific facts is simply not enough and like most art activists, she believes that if we want to move forward and effect meaningful change, we need to engage the other side of our brains.
In response to this a few years ago she started making headdresses from single use plastic refuse. She chose the headdress form for its aesthetic value and because of the link - If it’s on my head it’s my responsibility! She then created a series of photographic portraits of herself and her children wearing these plastic headdresses.
In response to this a few years ago she started making headdresses from single use plastic refuse. She chose the headdress form for its aesthetic value and because of the link - If it’s on my head it’s my responsibility! She then created a series of photographic portraits of herself and her children wearing these plastic headdresses.
After exhibiting them at The Electric Picnic music festival two years running, she was invited by a number of sustainable living festivals to exhibit these photographs. Alongside this exhibition of photos, she set up a portable photo-booth called; wait for it …..TITS UP (an acronym for This Is The Single Use Plastic - photo booth) as her personal reaction to being bombarded with images of rivers and oceans choking with plastic, as the world’s waste crisis deepens - is that it has indeed all gone TITS UP.
She regularly invites the public to have their portraits taken wearing these headdresses and is now using art as a means to engage people from all walks of society; to start meaningful conversations about what we as individuals can do, as she believes that it’s a problem that can truly be solved on an individual level and also by lobbying governments and manufacturers for change.
She regularly invites the public to have their portraits taken wearing these headdresses and is now using art as a means to engage people from all walks of society; to start meaningful conversations about what we as individuals can do, as she believes that it’s a problem that can truly be solved on an individual level and also by lobbying governments and manufacturers for change.
