Iranian artists Icy and Sot recently took off on another self-initiated mission, inspired by climate activist Greta Thunberg’s work and the worldwide environmental movement she has started. Using the vast Californian desert landscape as a dramatic backdrop for their work and activist’s impactful speech as an alarming wake-up call, Saman and Sasan Oskouei created a riveting video titled Our House is on Fire.
“I want you to panic. I want you to act as if your house was on fire.” – Greta Thunberg
In some way turning Greta’s inspiring words into poetic reality, Icy and Sot built a frame of an archetypal home and set it on fire. Allowing for the untouched surrounding nature to be seen between the blazing framework of the house, the artists suggest looking at the wider picture in which the Earth is our only home. The video shows the reversed footage of their installation being swallowed by flames and crumbling to the ground, creating an illusion of burning pieces of wood rising up and forming the familiar structure. With Greta’s voice in the background calling upon civil disobedience and rebellion, the video has a compelling incentive undertone reminding us that the change is possible if we put pressure on those in power. Sasha Bogojev
“ EU FLAG” permanent Public art intervention in Lisbon, portugal
This work presents a European flag made out of steel fence and barbed wire the materials evoke the physical barriers that migrantsface while trying to enter Europe and while they await with hope in refugee camps with inhuman conditions.
Despite the harsh reality it explores, the piece also tries to convey hope – the hope that the asylum seekers have. The lines create a silhouette allowing the sky in the background to come through in order to give a hopeful feeling. Its location in front of the river that runs into the ocean alludes to the sea voyage that many of them undertook and and are still undertaking in their search for a better life.
Special thanks to Underdogs Gallery for making this project happen
The work is on View at Praca Europa ( between cats do sore and Ribeira das Naus) in Lisbon. Portugal
United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and a corrupt and inhumane prison system. For example a person who has been recently released from prison is ineligible for welfare. they are not eligible for subsidized housing, they can’t find a job because of their Criminal record. Essentially, they come back to a society that is not prepared structurally or emotionally to welcome them back. most inmates who enter the system are likely to reenter within a few years of their release.
This prison cell is made with ladders, The ladder symbolizes the lessons that a prisoner can learn and want to move up in the society and to change to be a better person, but the prison system here makes that impossible because they can try to climb up the ladder but they never really get anywhere
While in Utsira Island in Norway, We went with some islanders to clean plastic garbage from a very small section of a shore, we collected over 30 gasoline cans with so many other plastic garbage that is been dumped in the ocean, these gasoline can are being dumped in the ocean by some sailors from different part of the world but they end up in such magical and clean island like Utsira snd do many parts of the world.
Yellowcake is a product of uranium mining. Many Navajo people worked at the mines, often living and raising families in close proximity; they were unknowingly exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and chemicals. Uranium mining and yellowcake processing continues today and threatens the environment and the health of communities across the U.S.
The navajo people did not have a word for radioactivity and did not know about the dangers of radiation in the 1940s when mining companies began surveying their land. Today the mines are closed but their toxic legacy persist in contaminated soil and drinking water with elevated levels of radiation. There are still over 500 abandoned mines scattered throughout the Navajo land posing serious health risks include lung cancer from inhalation of radioactive particles, as well as bone cancer and impaired kidney function.
Today uranium mining near the Colorado River, which flows through the Grand Canyon, threatens the drinking water supplies of millions of people. Due to uranium contamination in the Colorado River, the drinking water supply for half of the population of the Western U.S. may already be radioactive.
There are over 500 abandoned uranium mines on The Navajo Reservation and more than 80% of the mine sites have not been cleaned up. There are currently no federal laws that require clean up of these hazardous sites and they continue to pose significant danger to the Navajo people.
Toxic radioactive particles left over from abandoned uranium mines on Navajo land take the form of dust which travels with the wind for hundreds of miles. It can be inhaled or blow into streams or onto nearby ground spreading radioactive contamination.
Fall coat made with leaves
Don’t Mistake the Plastic bags for the Tree at Nuart Festival 2015 in Stavanger, Norway. A Green tree Made out of Plastic bags and a dead tree.
Let her be free Installation at Nuart Festival 2014 in Stavanger, Norwat.
