Eco-Art Competition 2022

In my artwork “Seed of Hope”, I depict a girl carrying a seedling that sprouts in a landscape polluted, destroyed and abandoned by human beings. With large garbage dumps, dead tree trunks and the fossil fuel power station emitting rotten gasses into the air, I try to emphasize the extent of destructiveness brought by urbanization. Below, the green seedling, in the shape of planet Earth, thrives. I want to convey that planting the “Seed of Hope” is the key to fighting against pollution because it is everyone’s responsibility to conserve and protect our Earth. The issue of pollution is important to me because I live in a developing country undergoing rapid industrialization. I feel concerned with garbage in the rivers and unclean air from factories nearby. According to the Institute of Health Metric and Evaluation, due to outdoor air pollution, 3.4 million people died prematurely in 2017. The plastic garbage buried in open landfills is said to take up to 1000 years to degrade. This will occupy and contaminate soil and emit dangerous methane gas, depriving us of our beloved land that we depend on. Aesthetically, I have used different color tones to contrast the girl with the seedling and the polluted environment around her. Blue and gray are used to evoke the inhumane and cold-blooded nature of pollution, while green and yellow on the girl signify the bright and hopeful future that nature promises. Furthermore, I made the girl embracing the seedling a resemblance of myself, showing that it is on us, the youth, to take care of our nature and bring hope to our world. Finally, I want to prompt my audience to act against pollution and motivate them to plant their own “seed of hope”—to preserve nature and set out to build a better world.