Artivist Series - Suzette Bousema
Suzette Bousema has breathed in air from 20,000 years ago. She is an emerging Netherlands-based visual artist. Suzette collaborates with environmental scientists to explore present day ecological crises. She engages audiences by using a variety of techniques including photography, glass blowing, and weaving to create experiences for our senses and assist us in wrapping our minds around big, abstract concepts. Suzette has garnered attention through international exhibitions and media coverage in such places as the Netherlands, New York, Kuwait, and France. On the podcast we discuss her project to photograph ancient polar ice cores, create her own climate archive with glass bubbles, and an engaging photograph she took of two men in business attire standing in the ocean. This photograph is Suzette’s way to engage her audience in a conversation about sea level rise and more.
Artivist Series - Lisa Kozel Mangione
Lisa Kozel Mangione is a mixed media artist who is the definition of artivist. Lisa raises money for charitable causes by either donating her work to the organizations directly or selling her work and donating the proceeds. Lisa is using her art in service of the Perryman Peninsula Project, a rural community in Harford County, Maryland. The land known as Mitchell Farm is under consideration for development as a freight distribution district. The possibility of the land being transformed from rural to industrial has spurred Lisa to action. She is concerned about the harm the development will cause on an area that used to be wetland. Already industrialization impacts local waterways and ultimately Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States. The new proposal will cause additional pressure and to be sited closer or on the water. Lisa wants people to know that even an average person can make a difference. “If everybody realizes that they have a small piece of the puzzle. It may be a small piece but when you put all the pieces together it becomes something big and good.