Three ways that I can contribute to climate change is to first minimalize the trash I produce every day. Second, I could use environment-friendly transportations such as biking. And third, I could let my friends and families be more aware of the environment issue and helping them solve and achieve their goals in sustainability.

Minimalizing trash is starting to become a popular sustainable trend in the society, as people began trying to buy food with a lot of packaging of plastic, or no composable supplies, which are usually all end up in the trash bin. I believe the first step of changing the climate is to separate my trash of recyclable and non-recyclable. Most people like me once did not realize the significant impact of recycling, as more plastics are being thrown into the ocean, and more production of those plastics by capitalist companies are made. Then, I could start buying products with little to no packaging, as I would not pick up their plastic bags that would usually contain your carrots or cabbages. And, as if the product does have packaging, I could make sure that the packaging is decomposable. I would have a soil bin with worms inside to help decompose part or most of my trash. Second, rather than driving everywhere, I could start biking or use automobiles that use electricity rather than gas for my transportation. Lastly spreading the word about climate change is one of the most important elements in making sure that I am contributing to climate change.

There are a lot of inconvenience issues with achieving contributing to the climate change, as most products are made to market to be very convenient, but most people are not aware that the process of this convenience is a significant blow to the environment. Another inconvenience for me is price, for a lot of the products that are environmentally friendly, are pricier than just buying something fast and cheap. Driving a gas driven car is the most convenient transportation as electric cars are pricier and there are not a lot of public transportations in Texas.

For my mudballs, I didn’t make it in time for the mudball making so I just took one from one of the leftover mudballs, and I left in my plastic bag near my window, which is next to the heater. As days pass, I just check into the ball a few times, and rather than taking pictures, I sketched the balls instead. and I threw my mudball into the pier near Harlem.

For my bag, at first, I wanted to make a bag that is really big and stylish, which is inspired by the big Chanel bag. But, I could not find anything that would bend like how I would want to, so I just decided to make a normal, simple bag. I first started with a bunch of plastic bags from my form, a pair of scissors, iron, needles, and thread. At first, I cut the bag like I was instructed to, and where we would iron the bags together so they would make a “fabric” type of texture, where then I sewed it together with hand. I was supposed to use a sewing machine, but I thought that it would mean more if I just hand sewed it. I started with 5 flat pieces of plastic fabric, and 2 triangles which are gonna used for the handles. To make sure that I did not waste all of the plastic bags, I stuffed the handles with the leftover pieces and made it into a sturdy handle. The hardest part for me was sewing the bag together, as I had little experience to hand sewing, so this was a lesson I learned from the process.

Our intention for the ‘Too Much!’ assignment was to communicate our frustration with the dangerous and unfair child labor practices of the textile industry in developing countries. To do so, we collected 20 stuffed animals, other small toys, and a long gown from thrift and discount stores around Midtown, took the stuffing out of the stuffed animals, and completely covered the dress by sewing and gluing to it the deflated stuffed animals and toys. The dress symbolizes how shoppers at fast-fashion retailers like Forever 21 and H&M are exchanging the childhoods of garment factory workers for their desire to follow the fashion industry’s seasonal demands for new, trendy, high-fashion pieces.

Our idea for ‘Too Much!’ was inspired by the 2015 documentary The True Cost, which details the lives of low-wage textile factory workers in developing countries such as India and Bangladesh. A number of us had seen the film prior to brainstorming ideas for the project, and two of our groupmates’ activist art presentations in class about forced child labor and the dangers of fast fashion led us to connect their information to that in The True Cost. Upon further research, we learned that 170 million children around the world, roughly 11% of the global population of children, are currently engaged in child labor to make textiles and garments for the demands of consumers in Europe and the United States. Through further brainstorm and discussion, we decided we wanted to use stuffed animals and toys as our found objects, and after throwing ideas around, we decided that the one with the most ‘shock factor’ was the glamorous and somewhat morbid gown of deflated childhood.

Our group was confident in our ability to find a gown and childhood relics around town, as we had done research for where to find the items for inexpensive prices. However, neither of us were confident in our prior experience with a sewing machine, so we decided to hand-sew each stuffed animal to the dress. Additionally, our original idea included a train of stuffed animals attached to the bottom of the gown, but our restricted time, money, and sewing machine skills unfortunately limited us to just working directly onto the gown.

We resolved our issues with time and sewing experience through use of a hot glue gun to attach the all of the toys to the gown. Additionally, to make up for the lack of a dress train, we attached the excess stuffing all over the empty holes in the dress to create a more voluminous shape, emphasizing the number of childhoods lost to the demands of Western consumerism in the fashion industry. Lastly, though our limited budget only allowed us to buy around 20 stuffed animals, we seam-ripped them butterfly-style so they would cover a greater surface area on the dress.

If we had allocated more time to this project, our group definitely could have worked together to learn how to sew with a machine, which would have allowed us to create the dress out of toys and stuffed animals alone. However, our strategy of sewing the materials directly onto a store-bought gown was still an effective way to portray our interpretation of the art activism assignment, especially because the extra stuffing made the empty spaces of the gown peeking through the stuffed animals and toys less noticeable. Our group members all grew with each other as collaborators and artists through the making process; our constant discussion of thoughts and opinions strengthened our concept and led us to our final product, one we are all proud to have been a part of.