The University of Manitoba campuses are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. More
Artist Name: Keigo Maekawa
Title: Hidden Consequences
Medium: digital painting
Year: 2020
Artist Statement:
Hidden Consequences explores what we choose to see versus what we ignore about consumer products. For the longest time, I was told I should avoid products made in country X because of their wasteful practices with their materials and questionable ethics and instead, should look for products made in more “trustworthy” countries. What is forgotten though is the fact that the materials sourced by many of these companies based in “trustworthy” countries are equally environmentally dubious.
This series represents the lumber, iron, and leather markets and the environmental and spatial issues that develop from common harvesting methods. The viewer will see the silhouettes of a product’s origin while in the background sits the locations these materials were harvested from. These images of scarred land are darkened an extreme amount, making it harder to see while the product is clearly in the foreground. Many consumers are blinded by the “made in country X” wording and are either unaware of or blatantly ignoring the damage these companies subsequently do by buying materials from unsustainable sources.