Amazonia, 2015
Amazonia is a data-driven artwork by Australian environmental artist Debbie Symons that explores deforestation, biodiversity loss, and global commodity systems within the Amazon rainforest. Through moving image and data visualisation, the work reveals the relationship between economic development and environmental degradation.
“We are all bound up in one great natural system, an ecosystem of universal proportions in which no part is immune from the events and changes in the others” Arnold Berleant, Environmental Aesthetics, Oxford Art Online
In this five-minute video work, threatened species and depleted natural resources are juxtaposed with key commodities, revealing the environmental cost of economic development in the Amazon Basin.
Since 1978, more than 750,000 square kilometres of rainforest and savanna have been cleared. This expansion has displaced Indigenous communities and countless species, driven by global demand for agricultural production.
Soybean exports from companies operating within the Amazon have increased dramatically, from 7 million tonnes in 1975 to over 50 million tonnes by 2010. Much of this production is used as livestock feed in industrial farming systems across Europe and the United States.
Amazonia draws on peer-reviewed scientific data, including research from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the National Institute for Space Research, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Using an animated map to track annual changes, the work visualises deforestation alongside species decline, making visible the connection between global consumption and environmental loss.
Exhibition History for Amazonia:
[MARS] Gallery, 21 January – 8 February, 2015
Latrobe Regional Gallery, The Politics of Perception, 21 March – 24 May 2015
Exhibition Reviews:
ArtsHub The Politics of Perception, Mem Capp
