Artist's Selection
MIDLAND
MIDLAND Series
“Preoccupied with a single leaf, you won’t see the tree, preoccupied with a single tree, you’ll miss the
entire forest”. – Takuan Soho
My belief is that in today’s world one of our biggest challenges is that we are not able to see the full
effects or the consequences of our decisions, nor our full potential.
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In today’s world we face numerous detrimental challenges – take the pollution in our waters arising
from human mismanagement, which includes toxic chemical leaks as a result of warfare and industry
slowly killing all marine life around us. Climate change is raising sea levels at alarming rates, such that
these actions have led to a phenomenon called climate refugees. The impacts of global warming have
led to more tension amongst people of different race and ethnicities as they try to escape poverty as
their livelihood rapidly diminishes. As a result, far-right and populist governments are on the rise as they
sell fear, create division amongst people and promote irresponsible actions, such denying these real
issues and expanding polluting industries and fossil fuel dependent energy rather than innovative green
industries. This is a cycle where each factor feeds off another. If actions are not taken to break the chain,
this will go on till our extinction.
If we take the time to educate ourselves and those around us about these issues and change the passive
mind-set to a proactive mentality, we might have a fighting chance. In my opinion, all of the issues and
solutions are based around the environment. Clean water and air – what should be free and pure has
become the price of life, and greed.