The Creek Monster Habitat Project was created with the intended goal of promoting sustainable environmental practices, appreciation of our natural environments and the 50th anniversary of Earth Day through the use of art. All was in place for a successful completion of the project through the first days of March—before the start of the quarantine period due to Covid-19, at which point we started to look for other ways to fulfill our mission.
Our strategy had to change, but that didn’t mean the impact of our message had to. We started to look at ways in which to use the quarantine period as a way to promote reconnecting with our natural environment—by taking time to walk outside or to”dig our feet in the dirt” as Karen Maness would say.
And so we decided to look within our UT community for help by featuring Local Heroes, local figures who actively work for a sustainable future, and other community members through a video selfie challenge to share how they view this important topic. We received video responses from numerous UT faculty, staff and students describing their work and why they do what they do—videos which can be seen at Texas Applied Arts’ Facebook and Instagram page.
We also shifted our focus to documenting this semester’s work so that a future iteration of this project can pick up where we left off—this includes social media strategies, installation blueprints, sound files, etc.
It was plenty of fun working on this project but also quite eye-opening. The amount of work that needs to be done for a sustainable future is one that can only be done by joining together for the cause of an environmentally safe Earth.
