uproot
San Jose, CA
2023, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Climate Hero: Tan Zi Xi
“I feel like there are countless possibilities in the kind of work I can produce as an artist.”
– Tan Zi Xi
i. “what is worth more, art or life?”
and people’s mouths foam with rage more than
the ocean foams with waste and blood.
make thanksgiving on the walls of van gogh and monet—
tomato soup, mashed potatoes, don’t forget the glue
don’t you think we already have enough anger in this world
did you forget?
Just Stop Oil but that includes the oils paint too, the watercolor, the river clay
& then we forget how to save something without destroying something else.
& then we forget how no one will heed our efforts if we ravage theirs
& then we forget how to listen, not to you, not to me, not to the earth
& then the world breaks out in cacophony. one hurricane to shatter us into apocalypse.
little girl in Somalia doesn’t give a shit that your paintings are gone. you think the turtles are
following your vandalism instead of the moon? and the men on the television already think we’re
insane. attention-seeking. never mind that they never lift a single finger, never mind that they’ll
drill deeper in the ocean and the ocean will leak oil like we leak blood. and we’ll keep pretending
that the icebergs freeze and the world cools down every time another monet painting is gone. like
they’ll suddenly have an epiphany “the world means more than this art to me.” fight fire with fire
while the water cries in the background. burns like water vapor, this scathing hate, does it not?
ii. “Plastic Ocean”
you smelled the blood and made rubies.
and everything became very blue,
maybe it’s the carbon in the air but it’s more like
taking the rotting sea to show to the world
golden plaque and all
who knew that all this trash piled up
could make something this grotesquely beautiful?
our world, in a bottle, in a thousand bottles, in a blue room,
since when was the universe made of plastic?
perhaps the stars are really just bottles
or even bottle caps in the sky
and the Sun is just what happens when
people set fire to too many things at once.
everything tints blue when you’re in the sea,
even plastic wrapping, even soda cans
even your skin when you are drowning.
& I’ll be at the bottom of the ocean floor where the turtles are
& I’ll look at the jellyfish up above, crinkly, naked, limp and motionless
& I will understand the direness of it all.
iii. so when the world finally ends (as all worlds do)
we’ll say we’ve seen it all already.
fight fire with fire and
there is an explosion.
fight fire with water and
it bursts into hot steam
the plastic in the ocean spreads out
a cosmos in the sky,
milky way leaking through the holes into your palms
and somewhere in the cosmos there will be you.
you, who can still create
as the rest of the world crumbles around you—
build me up when everything falls down.
take all their words, all their hate, all the things they throw away
and turn it into something beautiful.
and when the world finally ends
maybe we’ll rest knowing that
art
is not something to hate art
is not something to maim art
is our blood, our lifeline
is the millions of voices
of everyone who has lived before
and that crevice in the sand
where the salt
meets the sea.
Reflection
Reflection
I first read about climate activists destroying art sometime last year. Their motive, apparently, was to spread a message to the world: if they care so much about a painting being destroyed, how come they don't care about our planet being destroyed? As both an artist and someone who cares deeply about the environment, I felt conflicted. On one hand, I was angered by the destruction and disrespect of works that were the apotheosis of artists' creativity and inspiration. I also understood what the climate activists were trying to say. I saw Tan Zi Xi's art once a few years ago, and it has always resided in the back of my mind. Some climate activists have chosen art as the enemy of their message, but I think that art and activism cannot only coexist but represent each other. After all, art is what humans created to document the beauty of their world. In my opinion, Tan Zi Xi's piece "Plastic Ocean" spreads a far more powerful message than one of destruction. It's a beautiful piece, but it's also painful. It gently but firmly presses the truth on us without blatantly offending. It is not something we glance over and feel enraged about. It is something we will ponder, something that will stick with us for a long time. Studying this piece as well as writing this poem about it has affirmed my belief that art is a tool of activism, not the enemy of it. It also inspires me to be in a community of artists that are trying to spread the same message but in different ways. Her piece reminds me of how much power empathy can have on a specific cause, and how we can all benefit from taking a different perspective.