How Pac-Man Can Teach Sustainability

This past weekend, I found myself wandering around Boston at 1am in the rain with some of my friends searching for a dry coffee shop to duck into, (A rather long story involving some misinformation about the open hours of a certain place). It wasn't a complete loss, however, because while we were out we happened upon some very intriguing sculptures.

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the spheres are actually models of the globe, with powerful images painted on them.

 

The can in the upper left-hand corner represents the chemicals and pollution we dump into our oceans.
(My interpretation of the Pac-Man and other video game characters is that
the video game consoles were very toxic to the environment
when they were disposed of).

 

I apologize for the poor photo quality, these were taken on my phone, and the glare from all of the surrounding lights was horrendous.

Stumbling upon this reminded me of a discussion I had in my Eco-rep class last week about how the arts can be so influential in revolutionary movements. They can be used to our advantage to help advocate causes like learning about climate change and pollution, in a very unique and eye-catching way. Everyone who looks at this sculpture is free to interpret its message in their own way, which makes it more effective because they're coming to their own conclusion rather than being told what's happening and what to think about it.

I got to thinking about how even by being creative, I can do something to make a difference in this movement. A new goal that I have from this experience is to create some artwork portraying the harm being done to our planet.