Reflection

Reflection

I have lived on Long Island, New York for my whole life, and it used to be that every winter we had at least one massive blizzard that would get us a snow day. But, over time, less and less snow has fallen, replaced by rain. The main reason this change has happened is global warming. I still remember that, when Hurricane Sandy hit us in 2012, many trees fell down in our community, and a lot of property was damaged. We were out of power for almost two weeks. The hurricane also flooded many houses in South Shore, Long Island forcing residents to abandon their homes and live in shelters. Again, global warming is to blame for bringing more extreme weather to us. The diorama that I created is a scale model of my childhood home, rotted and dilapidated through years of increasingly severe weather catastrophes as a result of global warming. Using my future predictions based on the current trajectory of global weather change, I combined real architectural details and memories to create a representation of what could happen in the near future if we do not take action. During the process of destroying my childhood home, I felt melancholic about the thought of this reality. With each passing year of inaction, this fiction becomes fact. During the process of pouring the resin, which represents the rising water, I had difficulty containing the viscous sticky fluid and it ended up getting all over me. This accident mirrored what many sea organisms have to deal with after massive oil spills, such as the Gulf Coast Oil Spill that caused billions of dollars in damage and killed thousands of marine organisms. These spills happen because of our destructive nature and greed. This spill in fact was deliberate. I hope that my artwork will bring awareness to the risks of global warming and inspire more people to take action against this global threat.