Issue:
Among the trashes dumped into the ocean, cigarette butts are the worst ocean contaminant because of the toxic particles from the combination of plastic filter and the remnants of a smoked cigarette. As much as 5.5 trillion cigarettes are consumed globally every year, and 4.95 trillion of these are filters that are deposited somewhere in the environment worldwide. (https://www.cigwaste.org/butt-faqs)
Local Reality:
The tobacco industry in Indonesia remains to be one of the biggest driving forces for the country’s economy. Tobacco is the largest source of revenue after oil, gas, and timber. (https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/8/1/89)
- In the year 2013, it is recorded that 338 billion cigarettes were produced to be marketed to more than 90 million active users. (https://mediaindonesia.com/read/detail/273461-butuh-10-tahun-mengurai-sampah-puntung-rokok)
Although helping the economy prosper, the downside to this is its negative environmental impacts both pre-production and post-production;
- Over 100,000 hectares of land is devoted to growing tobacco in Indonesia, the process of growing tobacco itself leads to massive deforestation. (https://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas16.pdf?ua=1)
- Ocean Conservancy Organization and International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) teamed up to organize events to collect and remove trash from beaches and waterways across 116 countries, including in Indonesia. According to their 2019 cleanup data in Indonesia, cigarette butts are the most collected trash with 115.445 units, which accounts for almost half the total of collected trash. (https://oceanconservancy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FINAL_2020ICC_Report.pdf)
Activist Group:
Greenpeace Indonesia https://www.greenpeace.org/indonesia/
Greenpeace is one of the biggest non-governmental environmental organization that runs in over 55 countries. Greenpeace strives to help the environment and to promote peace in various ways such as publishing articles, exposing global environmental issues and promoting solutions, doing donations and campaigns, making a platform for creative communication, to name a few.
My Contribution:
As I was looking at the Greenpeace Indonesia site, I was struck by this artwork under the subpage ‘aksi’. It’s a really powerful digital illustration that was used as the featured image for an article about the campaign against forest fires. I was inspired to do the same thing and create an artwork that confronts my chosen issue.
Above is the sketch for the design I aimed to create. For my piece, I wanted to enforce the idea of how cigarettes play the role of a double-edged sword for it aids the economy of Indonesia yet it has a detrimental effect on the marine ecosystem as it ends up being majorly dumped into the ocean.
This is the finished design that I made in Photoshop. I used the highest value of the Indonesian banknote which is 100,000 Indonesian Rupiah and created alterations to many elements. The money is made entirely out of cigarette sticks, aside from the ocean wave and the yellow strips. I changed the value ‘100.000’ into ‘115.455’ to represent the number of cigarette butts found in the Indonesian ocean as of the ICC’s 2019 cleanup data. Under that is the phrase ‘Rupiah Serakah’ which literally translates to ‘Greedy Rupiah’ to imply that the tobacco industry is mainly interested in making money at the expense of environmental degradation. Another really small detail is the tiny text on the right saying ‘Emisi 2019′ which is a play on words because ’emisi’ can both mean issued on or simply emission. The meaning in real context is that it is issued in 2019, however in this case it is supposed to imply that this is the ’emission’ of 2019, linking back to the 2019 data stating the amount of these toxic cigarette butts discharged to Indonesia’s waterways. Lastly, the waves complete the story to literally depict the cigarette butts ending up in the waterways.
This is how I picture my design to be featured on Greenpeace Indonesia’s website, so when it is clicked it will be directed to their published article that dives into how the tobacco industry affects the environment and to call them out for such actions. Through this project, I come to realize that art can be a tool for activism. Although at first glance my design is somewhat simple, when you take a closer look it has many layers to be discovered and analyzed further. As opposed to the straight-forward attitude of an article, I believe that my metaphorical artwork contrasts well to catch the readers’ attention.
