Art, image and environment: revisualizing Bali in the Plastiliticum

Abstract

This article deals with environmental activism in Balinese contemporary art. I demonstrate how young Balinese artists have used their creativity to give visibility and/or audibility to some of the main threats to Bali’s natural, social and cultural environments, including land reclamation projects and plastic waste pollution. I argue that their work is not to be narrowly interpreted as a heuristic device of the environmentalist movement or waste recycling campaigns. In terms of media, content and styles of representation and presentation, the artists engage with the sociopolitical histories and aesthetic regimes behind the economic developmentalism and consumer behaviour causing the various ..