Profits / Populations – It’s all Numbers, 2010. Video art work

Exhibition: June 5 to June 30, 2010. Screening daily from 11.00am to 3pm & 11.00pm to 3am, Urban Screen, Federation Square.

“We are all bound up in one great natural system, an ecosystem of universal proportions in which no part is immune from the events and changes in the others”  Arnold Berleant, Environmental Aesthetics, Oxford Art Online

Profits / Populations – It’s all Numbers interrogates the inextricable links between environmental degradation and free market capitalism. During the 5 minute video, threatened species and destroyed natural resources are juxtaposed with commodities, unequivocally and powerfully measuring the costs of recent economic development within the Amazon rainforest.

Regarded as the “lungs” of our planet by numerous climate scientists, the Amazon is at present being agriculturally developed at an alarming rate, displacing numerous native people and animal species in the relentless pursuit of economic gain. Since 1990 the Amazon has been cleared of over 338,387 sq km of pristine rainforests and savannas. Correspondingly, exports of soybean from internationally owned companies operating within Brazil and Bolivia has increased to 54 million tons. The exported soybean produced within the Amazon region is predominately used as livestock fodder in factory farms. The work Profits / Populations - It’s all Numbers seeks to communicate the multifaceted ecological conundrum taking place within the Amazon, by combining the various “peer reviewed” data bases.  

The work amalgamates the work of three international research organisations, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the National Institute for Space Research, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. These unique and data rich organisations have provided the statistical information needed to survey the economic and environmental issues taking place within the Amazon.

Profits / Populations – It’s all numbers utilises an animated economic graph to track annual developments, visualising environmental research on deforestation and threatened animal and plant species. The works narrative implores us to look upon the critical situation transpiring in the Amazon with renewed impetus by transposing one form of crisis upon another, reflecting not only the dire situation materializing within the Amazon rainforest, but also the growing worldwide environmental conundrum.

Profits / Populations – It’s all Numbers has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Data sourced from
Deforestation
National Institute for Space Research – http:// www.inpe.br/ingles/news/news_dest117.php
It should be acknowledge that some replanting is occurring in Legal Amazonia; however the annual rate of replanting is not greater than the annual rate of deforestation   
Species
International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources – Red List of Threatened Species – Years 2000 – 2009.
http://www.iucnredlist.org/?sess=f0dee989327e871af586b2a5bd4542f8
Soybean Data for Brazil and Bolivia
Food & Agriculture Organisation United Nations http://www.fao.org/
For years 1990 – 2007

GDP Agriculture 11.3%
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
For years 2008 – 2010