Central Kaeru Station — Where Have All These Toys Come From? is an exhibit by Hiroshi Fuji of 100,000 abandoned toys that were collected across Japan over 13 years. The art exhibit is part of a larger recycling program that encourages kids to trade out their unwanted toys for the ones in the collection. 

The Little Green Dress Project by Nicole Dextras

About the project:

The concept behind the Little Green Dress has been extrapolated from the age-old fashion adage that every woman should own a little black dress and brings this notion into the realm of today’s environmental awareness. It proposes instead that women should have at least one item of clothing in her wardrobe that is produced in a sustainable and equitable manner. The aim of this project is to promote awareness on the impact of industry on our environment and to offer a realistic opportunity for change by creating a demand for better practices through consumer purchasing. For this reason the dresses will be made entirely from organic materials; Wear it and Compost it!

The Little Green Dress Project replaces the ubiquitous black dress with one that is truly organic: made from leaves and flowers. Its design is based on the classic shift dress, first introduced in the 1960’s by Coco Channel. The twenty-eight participating women will be chosen for their support and involvement in eco-fashion. Each dress will be made to measure by the artist from locally sourced materials representing a wide cross section of women of all ages and sizes from fashionistas, to gardeners. Invited participants will be asked to describe their favorite sustainable article of clothing and their interest in creating sustainable industries.

The project will be presented at the Earth Art exhibition in Vancouver, BC Canada as an outdoor installation of 28 dresses, each draped over a wooden stand. They will be created on site and installed during the run of the exhibition. As with Dextras’ previous Weedrobes series, each sculpture will be photographed and then left to decompose over time.

Vegetation overtakes an abandoned building complex in the Jhongjheng District of Badouzi, Taiwan. Photos by Flickr user Cock_a_doodle_do. 

These aerial photos of urban sprawl by Christoph Gielen tell a much bigger story.

Gielen on his work:

The photographic aerial studies in Ciphers reveal the hidden geometries of sprawl growth that become apparent only when seen from far above the ground. These top-view abstractions show striking parallels between layouts and shapes of otherwise unrelated developments – structures as varied in function as prisons and retirement communities. But all of them clearly demonstrate sprawl as a car dependent phenomenon and as a way of life. These pictures are intended to invoke an era of carefree risk-taking, of “bigger is better,” when investing in home ownership and commercial real estate were still standard practices and neither distance from workplace or city centers nor gasoline prices much mattered in determining the geographic locations of new constructions.

The goal of this work is to connect art with environmental politics and to trigger a discussion about contemporary building trends by looking closely at the ramifications of sprawl – to ask: what is sustainable planning? – particularly at this point in time, when a growing need for new housing is prevalent across the globe. To further explore these environmental topics within the context of other disciplines, Ciphers was paired with the thoughts of futurist Geoff Manaugh, cultural philosopher Johan Frederik Hartle, urban redevelopment expert Galina Tachieva, and architect Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss.

Awe-inspiring photography by Marc Adams.

Adams on his work:

I’d like to introduce you to the natural world I know. Come follow along on my journey. Explore, consider, and take something with you. This is nature through my eyes. These photographs do not arise from any particular desire to see the world through a lens, but rather from my deep passion for this land we call wilderness. It has shaped every aspect of my life. I wish to show you the amazing, beautiful and powerful forces that have created the Earth we live on…

I want you to know just how undeniably precious these lands are in their preservation. We NEED wilderness; now more than ever. The wilderness experience becomes ever more important to balance our lives as we become more industrialized and therefore bound within our own creations. This is because there exists within it a deep connection unlike anything that can be found in today’s intense world of instantly manufactured gratification. There is a certain freedom that comes only when we are immersed in the natural world. I come to the wilderness to experience something much greater than ourselves, and I hope you will too…Never be afraid to explore, to wander, to find a new direction. Share the beauty of this wonderful life and this wonderful Earth so they may be here forever.

Read his whole statement here

Naoya Hatakeyama uses remote-controlled cameras to capture limestone blasting in Japan. You can see his exhibit Natural Stories on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through November 2, 2012.

Photographer Shawn Heinrichs swims with sharks in order to save them. By capturing their splendor in the water, he hopes to raise enough awarenes of their needless slaughter to spark greater conservation efforts. These photos of whale sharks certainly got my attention.

China’s Environmental Protection Foundation wanted to draw attention to the increasing environmental impact of the growing Chinese car industry and to encourage people to walk more, and drive less. DDB China Group put together a clever campaign that did exactly that in a fun and engaging way.

About the campaign:

We decided to leverage a busy pedestrian crossing; a place where both pedestrians and drivers meet. We lay a giant canvas of 12.6 meters long by 7 meters wide on the ground, covering the pedestrian crossing with a large leafless tree. Placed on either side of the road beneath the traffic lights, were sponge cushions soaked in green environmentally friendly washable and quick dry paint. As pedestrians walked towards the crossing, they would step onto the green sponge and as they walked, the soles of their feet would make foot imprints onto the tree on the ground. Each green footprint added to the canvas like leaves growing on a bare tree, which made people feel that by walking they could create a greener environment.

The Result:

The Green Pedestrian Crossing was carried out in 7 main streets of Shanghai and later expanded to 132 roads in 15 cities across China. A total number of pedestrians that participated exceeded 3,920,000 people. Key media both online and offline rapidly wrote about the campaign. According to research, the overall awareness of environmental protection had increased 86%. After the campaign, the print was exhibited at the Shanghai Zheng Da Art Museum.

These images from NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge aerial survey show the opening waters of Arctic Sea region. Scientists directly attribute the record high pace of ice melt this year to climate change, which is no laughing matter.

Wired UK has assembled images from J Henry Fair’s book The Day After Tomorrow into a chilling slideshow: In Focus: The blue planet’s toxic new colors. Check it out to learn more about the locations pictured and the toxins that are contaminating our environment.

About the book:

The Day After Tomorrow takes readers on a journey to bear witness to the environmental destruction that is currently plaguing our planet; from a forest in West Virginia devastated by mountaintop removal mining, to a region in Florida left in ruins by the phosphate mining industry, J Henry Fair presents hard evidence that our unchecked consumerism is leading the way in the destruction of our planet, one natural resource at a time.

Primarily through the use of aerial photography, Fair captures spellbinding vistas of pools of toxic hog waste, streams of paper mill runoff, and the remains of hollowed-out mountains. These environmental abstractions lure the viewer in with unique asymmetrical shapes and striking colors; however, fascination quickly turns to horror, as the viewer realizes what lurks beneath the surface of the image.

This concept plane by Airbus would make flying fun again while making it environmentally friendly. Its unusual structure was inspired by its companions in the sky.

About:

Future aircraft could be built using a bionic structure that mimics the bone structure of birds. Bone is both light and strong because its porous interior carries tension only where necessary, leaving space elsewhere. By using bionic structures, the fuselage has the strength it needs, but can also make the most of extra space where required. This not only reduces the aircraft’s weight and fuel burn, but also makes it possible to add features like oversized doors for easier boarding and panoramic windows.

In addition to the improved body of the plane, there would be outfitted with cutting edge technology to entertain passengers and to improve energy efficiency.

Warning: Watching this video will make you even more dissatisfied with the current state of air travel:

This mural of a tree by Andreco mimics its subject by actually improving the air quality of its surroundings.

About:

Instead of using traditional exterior paints he used a special kind of photochemical paint that reduces the amount of nitrogen monoxide in the air. According to the artist, the artwork represents a big tree, inspired from the Philosophical Tree of the Alchemists of the 14th century. The painting is also designed to resemble a big egg and a crystal, symbols that represents the transition from the organic to inorganic material.

The Brecce Collection of lamps by designer Marco Stefanelli repurposes sawmill scraps by embedding them with LED lights encased in resin.

Cathedrals of Desire by Michelle Muldrow

Muldrow on her work:

Cathedrals of Desire investigates the experience of the repulsion and seduction of the American landscape. This new body of work incorporates the landscape painting tradition with awe-inducing elements of cathedrals to evoke a contemporary sublime. My paintings of big box stores are intended to elicit fear and awe at the vast American consumer landscape. This series is inspired by the theories of Edmund Burke’s treatise on the sublime and its relationship with terror. This, paired with the concept of the divine power of the sublime, heavily influenced my depiction of these consumer spaces as Cathedrals of Desire. These environments represent not only the actual structural space and overwhelming chaos of goods, but also the psychology and vernacular of American consumerism. The obtrusive massive structures built with no attempt at aesthetic beauty reveal the most naked of American consumer desires. The language of American desire can be reduced to vignettes of patio furniture and gingham covered tables set like small picnics. Cathedrals of Desire is an attempt to respond to this landscape by obviating the contrast between the mundane and the dramatic; the absurd experience of both comfort and the profane.

Sayaka Ganz’s Reclaimed Creations

Ganz on her work:

Driven by a combination of my passion for fitting odd shapes together and a sympathy toward discarded objects, I create animals from thrift store plastics.

I spent my early childhood in Japan but I grew up in several different countries. Japanese Shinto beliefs are such that all objects and organisms have spirits, and I was taught in kindergarten that objects that are discarded before their time weep at night inside the trash bin. This became a vivid image in my mind…

I only select objects that have been used and discarded. My goal is for each object to transcend its origin by being integrated into an animal/ organic forms that are alive and in motion. This process of reclamation and regeneration is liberating to me as an artist.

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