Beneath the Ozone

Shown at BFA Senior Thesis Show May 2021

The world is falling apart around us and yet I fly planes every year, multiple times. The world is falling apart around us, yet I printed 200 photos of planes and continued consumption habits that are detrimental to the environment. The world is falling around us, and I find my ecological commitments feeble vis-à-vis the epic challenges of climate change, rising seas, and devastating fires.  My work is about hypocrisy and anxiety born from living at the precipice of environmental collapse. 

Global conglomerates issue glossy annual reports and optimistic commercials stating their commitments to carbon neutrality and other vague green policies. It is easy to mock Amazon and British Petroleum (re-branded to Beyond Petroleum) for their obvious shortcomings, but it is naïve to assume these companies are the only ones guilty of hypocrisy.  My work is simultaneously a critique of corporate propaganda that greenwashes and gaslights as well an indictment of myself for failing to radically change my behavior to help fundamentally change the trajectory of environmental disaster. Corporations like to claim they are “truly committed” to a cleaner, brighter future.  But am I truly committed?  Are you?