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Hello everyone! My name is Jacob Hey, I am the executive director of Organization for Inspiration. Welcome to our third Art Not Apathy Event this year. Tonight’s event is all about ecological awareness. But before I get to that, let me explain who we are to you newcomers. Organization for Inspiration is a new collective organization that is not for profit. We are entirely composed of the creative talents of artists, filmmakers, musicians, poets and all other creative peoples. We are locally based here in Milwaukee, and our long term goal is to open a public arts recourse center with a recording studio, photography studio, art studio, computer lab and other assets for members of the community. But we are starting this vision by organizing these events which we call Art Not Apathy gatherings. Why do we call them art not apathy gatherings?
Well to start, we like to think of ourselves as an activist-oriented arts organization. We artists tend to have beliefs as colorful as our canvas’s , and at times we can feel alienated by our beliefs, which is why at times some of us need to see and hear what others feel about these issues in order to properly express our own beliefs. This is why we organize art not apathy gatherings. We choose an important issue like tonight’s topic, Ecological Awareness, and come together to voice our opinions through our personal art forms. It is the eve of the year 2010 and most of us already think on a daily basis about the fact that our systems of global trade and disposable consumerism are detrimental to our ecosystem. Many of us know global warming is a real and looming threat to our very existence, and that the earths recourses from which we attain all of the things we purchase and take for granted on a daily basis are in a very finite supply. Decisions we make every moment of every day are actually determining whether or not we or our children will be able to exist due to mass consumerism and over consumption based on a monetary system that is based on lies. Sometimes it can be hellish to go on through the day because we feel apathetic. We say to ourselves that we cannot undo the damage that has been done. We feel that we cannot make a true difference in the world. But some of us have already found that we most certainly can. For one, the very systems of trade that are destroying our mother planet are not run by the heads of giant corporations, but by us. By every buying decision that we make at the supermarket, the mall, and the grocery store. When we purchase a product, no matter how benign it may seem at the time, we are actually practically screaming an advertisement to the world. Statistics are held for every product, and naturally, the people “On top” of the pyramid are not concerned with ethics, if their product expends resources that will one day have catastrophic results on our ecosystem, but people still purchase it, they will continue to produce it, whether or not it ends up murdering their grandchildren or for that matter, children enslaved today in order to produce said product. However, if people begin to purchase the more ecologically and socially sound version of the product, the companies will have no choice but to begin marketing the more ecologically sound product. If people follow in this knowledge, we can switch to a completely green economy in no time. Ecological issues of today need constant vigilance and awareness if we are to save this planet from global catastrophe. In the 1950s corporate America began rationing through grocery stores, processed canned and boxed foods with preservatives in them. This mass production of processed foods was ironically called “The Green Revolution”. This is when the American public stopped eating actual food. This has wreaked havoc on both the human body and the world. The original reason food was being preserved with these additives was because we were in anticipation of a nuclear holocaust. So we eat fake food today, that is as detrimental to our health as it is to our world, because of the nuclear scare. And we have been conditioned to believing that this stuff is food. People are waking up to the fact that what really matters is what we do locally, here and now. People are taking up planting victory gardens in their front yards and growing their own foods, and buying locally from food co-ops that sell all natural, organic real foods that are as beneficial to the body as they are to the environment. And riding bicycles whenever they can. There are thousands of issues in the world that need our attention right now. And the best thing to do is do whatever you can locally in order to inspire a better global society. Our planet is not composed of dead matter, on the contrary, ask any scientist, Earth is a living breathing organism flourishing with life. No different from you and I. Within the human body, many living thing exist. These beings have feelings and perceptions just as you and I. And as they are to us, we are to our planet. Will we give back to her the life she has given to us, or will we be as a disease to her and cause our own demise? These are real things we have to consider here and now. Not at some distant time in the future, but right now. I’d like you to think about that for the night. |