5
OPINION
Thursday, June 20, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OPINION
I
n Costa Rica, there is a relaxed
pace in both wild life and human
nature. It is a place to truly take in
the untouched world around you. When
I visit, my favorite spots to explore are
the empty miles of coast line, water-
falls or jungle pathways. Beaches are
stripped away of human presence and
footprints through the circuitous
cycle of washing waves. To experience
Costa Rica is to understand the beauty
and importance of a place that values
the natural world. This reverence for
the earth can only be accomplished
through the attention of people and
the prevention of immense destruc-
tion that is relatively easy for humans
to impose upon the natural world.
I have read about the vast envi-
ronmental programs that the Costa
Rican government wants to imple-
ment, and it is inspiring for the rest
of the world. It plans to become a
plastic-free and carbon-free country
through policy work and environ-
mental determination.
There have been a few conflict-
ing prediction dates on when it will
all come together, but they are cur-
rently working on steps to reach a
carbon-neutral state. Costa Rica is
already one of the leading countries
in renewable energy. Its renewable
energy sources provide the country
with about 99 percent of its energy
needs. This dedication to sustainable
energy resources allows the country
to uphold its conservation efforts.
Through the environmental plan,
Costa Rica projects that it will get to
a point of “zero net emissions.” This
means that its conservation efforts,
such as reforesting and managing
land correctly, will offset the amount
of emissions being produced. This
balancing act means that the country
is limiting carbon emissions as well
as taking a proactive role in the man-
agement of its expansive rainforests
and beaches.
In addition to its carbon-neutral
advancements, the nation announced
its plans to become completely plastic
free by 2021. This would make it the
first country to complete such a task.
The country as a whole is working to
replace plastics with biodegradable
or sustainable alternatives in order
to reduce the harmful impact of plas-
tics in landfills and oceans. While
visiting Costa Rica, I saw this reduc-
tion of plastic across several fields. I
noticed national advertisements for
alternatives, as well as local efforts
to reduce waste. Handmade post-
ers decorated the walls of cafés that
promoted a plastic free environment.
Coffee shops only provided composta-
ble materials and cardboard straws.
Family-run souvenir shops skipped
plastic bags and posted up phrases like
“Do you really need a bag? Say NO to
plastic bags.” It was a hopeful sight to
see that the Costa Rican people really
supported the country’s push for
environmental change. This under-
scores that community level passion
is instrumental in fueling the drive
for governmental and nation-wide
policy.
Some skeptics have explained that
these ambitious plans will be too dif-
ficult to achieve by 2021. In an article
from Vox, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez,
the country’s minister of environ-
ment and energy, explained that
“some people have misunderstood
the President’s declarations because
we don’t plan to ban the use of fos-
sil fuels, we plan to phase them out
through new policies and incentives
so that eventually, down the road,
they will be useless.” It is clear that
this will not be a one-step process
of simply banning everything that
stands in the way of environmental
purity.
Most of the country’s emissions
come from the transportation sector,
which is reportedly one of the hard-
est areas to decarbonize quickly.
The high demand for transportation
and private ownership could be due
to the expansive lands and distance
between cities. In addition to the
large territory, I noticed that most
roads wind through jungles and
mountains, which seemingly makes
it even more difficult and slow to
travel by car. These long distances
ultimately create a higher need for
gas and thus higher rates of emis-
sions. The government’s fix for this
is to incentivize cleaner options such
as electric cars in order to reduce the
carbon footprint in the transporta-
tion front.
From international news to local
observations, it is clear that this
Central American country is trying
to raise awareness and care for the
beautiful environment it calls home.
Though some of the government’s
claims are difficult to achieve with-
out some large overhauls of emissions
and product usage, the mere fact that
it is instigating these changes is quite
revolutionary. Costa Rica is looking
to be the first country to achieve its
goals and set policies and passion for
the betterment of its people’s future.
I only hope that the rest of the world
looks to its intelligence and vigor in
its strive for a sustainable nation and
seeks to follow suit.
Costa Rican environmental policy is pura vida
ANNE ELSE | COLUMN
Anne Else can be reached at
aelse@umich.edu.
AKAASH TUMULURI | COLUMN
T
he Met, MoMA, the
DIA, even our very own
UMMA:
There’s
one
thing these so-called “high art”
institutions have in common
— the art is usually displayed
on white walls. This is done
intentionally to avoid distraction,
to create a void-like space in
which you can experience the art
while expelling your prior biases,
so you may receive each piece of
art with a more open mind. Those
in charge of the walls can’t seem
to be influenced by their own
design, however, as the problem
with these white walls is that
most of the art that adorns them
is, in fact, white — and male.
And there, again, we see the
same story played on repeat,
even in a world that supposedly
prides itself on progressive open-
mindedness and being ahead of
the curve.
A recent study done by a
group of professors looked at
18 major American art institu-
tions — including the Met, the
Art Institute of Chicago and the
DIA — and found 85 percent of
the artists represented at these
institutions were white. 87 per-
cent were male. Compared to the
U.S. Census data — which shows
only 60.7 percent of the Ameri-
can population self-identify as
“white alone, not Hispanic or
Latino” and 49.2 percent identify
as male — those raw numbers
are appalling. This same study
found 60 percent of museum
staff are women, though they
only compose 43 percent of those
in leadership or directorial roles.
72 percent of museum staff are
white.
The argument to this is that
many of these museums include,
and in some cases, prioritize his-
torical collections, and American
museums are inclined toward
procuring European historical
art, which was generally made by
white, male artists. And this was
a time when women and people of
color were marginalized from the
art community. Let’s set aside the
idea that prioritizing said Euro-
pean art encourages a limited
view of history that legitimizes
outdated Western ideals of race
and gender power dynamics.
Let’s instead take a look at the
galleries that feature work from
contemporary artists — post-
enlightenment era work that one
would expect to be more open
and representative — and we find
that it isn’t. A study looking at
the top 45 galleries in New York
City found 78.4 percent of the
artists represented by these gal-
leries were white, 85.4 percent of
the American artists were white
and 70 percent of all artists were
male. This is a problem that per-
sists.
The confusing bit is that most
art schools are, in fact, more
diverse and female-dominated
than this. Of the 125 students
studying at the Yale School of
Art, 70 are women — that’s 56
percent. Our own School of Art
and Design claims the “majority
of our undergraduate students
self-identify as women, a trend
observed nationally and glob-
ally in schools of art & design.”
Stamps also reported that 27.7
percent of its students identi-
fied as part of a minority group,
which, while still notably white,
is not over 80 percent white, and
is continuing to trend up.
Both the study on U.S. Muse-
ums and NYC galleries were
done
through
crowdsourcing
— taking starting points of data,
such as gallery rosters or exhibi-
tion artist lists, and asking mem-
bers of the community to fill out
the demographic information
to the best of their knowledge.
Now, this may seem like an
unreliable method for procur-
ing data, but that is not a reason
to dismiss these studies. First,
the numbers of both studies have
been updated upon both of their
releases, after having been scru-
tinized by the public and cor-
rected for errors. Second, this
represents at least a glimmer of
data in an arena in which little to
no demographic data is available.
You can’t fix a problem you don’t
know exists.
So how do we fix this? It starts
at the top. Gallery owners and
exhibition
curators
need
to
make a point of procuring work
from people of color and women.
While many art students are a
part of these minority groups,
they — rightfully so — may not
feel they are able to “make it” in
the gallery art world and there-
fore decide to pursue differ-
ent avenues with their degrees.
Buying art from more margin-
alized communities emboldens
those, with or without a degree,
to realize their art can be on
those white walls too. Art needs
to be prioritized as a part of
early education, which is, sadly,
negatively trending with more
and more art programs being
cut in underprivileged commu-
nities — areas that are generally
the most diverse.
Galleries and museums are
slowly beginning to shake this
antiquated representation, but
it’s not happening anywhere
near quickly enough. White
walls are starting to feel con-
stricting, archaic, monotonous.
So, hell, let’s paint the walls
black, brown, pink or whatever
color you’d like. It’s not quite the
subtlety you think of in “high
art,” but I’m over subtle. Those
white walls could use a splash of
color.
White art on white walls
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You can’t fix a
problem you don’t
know exists
Akaash Tumuluri can be reached at
tumula@umich.edu.