Arcadia Earth Uses Art, Technology, And A Positive Attitude To Heal The World

If you think one person can’t make a difference, think again

Courtesy of Arcadia Earth

Arcadia Earth is 15,000 square feet of inspiration, celebration, and empowerment - not words commonly associated with the climate crisis. At a time when we are inundated with fatalistic news of our global climate situation, founder and creative director Valentino Vettori has instead strategically chosen to take visitors on an exuberant journey through a visually stunning utopic Earth. He creates an engaging environment for guests to connect with the realities of our most important environmental issues while also presenting them with solutions. Throughout the journey, suggestions are provided for easy tasks which encourage observers to take eco-friendly action.

Courtesy of Arcadia Earth

Becoming part of the solution is par for the course as guests travel through the educational yet stunning experiential spaces created by Mr. Vettori and his team of twelve leading environmental artists. The installations are constructed in alignment with their message, using upcycled and reusable materials. Fifteen unique rooms are transformed into immersive, memorable, and meaningful experiences, owing to a trifecta of art, modern technology, and well-researched facts. 

Each room is focused on a crucial ecological issue. Some of the topics highlighted are deforestation, food waste, overfishing, climate change, and plastic pollution. For every “unpleasant truth” a solution is presented. Every room informs with commentary about its topic in a “did-you-know…?” style, and offers actionable suggestions with a list of at least three “simple tasks that anyone can do.”

Visitors learn of the egregious burden of plastic pollution in its various contexts. In New York State alone, 23 billion plastic bags are used per year. That’s 44,000 plastic bags every minute.

To help people relate to the magnitude of that number and its impact, the installation designed with artist Basia Goszczynska showcased a cave created with 44,000 plastic bags. Upon entering a person can palpably sense the level of pollution that creates. Refusing to use single-use plastic bags is not only a common sense solution, but feels essential. It is sobering to think it took months to create what is used in 60 seconds. 

Another room drives home the inconvenient truth about microplastics. Due to their ubiquity and  decay rate, we ingest the equivalent of one credit card per week in microplastics. In another room the artist Etty Yaniv at once makes us mindful of both the power of our planet’s oceans and the scale of pollution in them in her plastic tsunami installation.

Courtesy of Arcadia Earth

Human agriculture, one of the most polluting industries, is responsible for the clearing of 50,000 thousand acres of land every day. To help us comprehend the breadth of that impact, Mr. Vettori translates it this way, “Every day we cut down three and a half times the size of Manhattan to make space for agriculture. That’s a lot of space!”

A large proportion of land is cleared for the corn and crops needed for industrialized animal agriculture. Additionally, meat consumption has a considerable impact on greenhouse gas emissions. To express the staggering number of animals involved, the artist Tamara Kotianovsky placed a carcass created with materials leftover from discarded clothes into an infinity mirror box. You might think becoming a vegetarian would be the obvious solution, but actually it’s not because free grazing farm animals are desperately needed to fertilize the depleted soil of our abused agricultural forest. Simply reducing our meat intake once per week would produce a significant impact, in particular on greenhouse gas emissions.

Arcadia Earth was produced after extensive research and in conjunction with teams of expert  cientists. The majority of that expertise was provided by their educational and charitable partner Oceanic Global, who are committed to raising awareness for ocean conservation. Additional support was provided by World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The production of Arcadia Earth was a labor of love and every aspect was painstakingly considered. Collecting and converting facts, ideas, and resources into such a well-thought out venue was an extraordinary feat, but Mr. Vettori’s journey to Arcadia Earth was equally extraordinary. An accomplished industrial designer with an upward trajectory, he abruptly changed course upon gaining an awareness of the circumstances. After doing jobs for the largescale trade show industry, he came to a startling realization. He was contributing to a tremendous amount of pollution. For his more recent projects he transformed the pavilions of convention centers and the brands within them into beautiful spaces, but after a few days all the materials and resources required to build them were essentially discarded. This sizeable contribution to environmental waste was a wake-up call. He thought, “What am I doing on this planet?” That’s when he decided he had to change, even as he faced the practicalities of everyday life.

Then two years ago while at Summit in Los Angeles, he met Paul Hawken, the author of the New York Times bestseller Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Surprised by the low turnout to such an important talk, he approached Mr. Hawken to ask the obvious question: why aren’t people paying attention to how we can save the planet? The response was that the conversation about sustainability was predictably very negative. People avoid doomsday scenarios. Mr. Vettori suspected that people also felt overwhelmed. They wonder how one person could effect any appreciable change on such a big problem?

With that conversation, Mr. Vettori flipped the script and vowed not to continue with his work until he could “build a platform or a concept that would inspire people to care about the environment.” His strategy for success was to address the inconvenient truths while engaging people in a positive way. Moreover, he would show people that each individual can make a difference.

Two years later, Valentino Vettori proved himself right in producing Arcadia Earth. In this venue, art and technology combine with educational commentary and actionable suggestions in a positive environment to create a powerful, personal exploration of the planet’s predicament which empowers visitors to become part of the solution. The final room in the installation articulates this by inviting people to make their own individual vows as to how they will contribute to healing the planet.

Arcadia Earth opened on August 30th and is located at 718 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City, New York. Tickets can be purchased online at arcadia.earth. The project is scheduled to go until March 2020.

©Rowshanak Hashemiyoon