For my second event, I attended the Chemical Entanglements
Symposium and had the opportunity to hear from multiple female speakers about
different hazards, and unknown truths about the way we interact with chemicals
on a day to day basis. My favorite
lecturer of the day was Liza Grandia, who’s presentation was titled, “Sickly
Green: a parable of carpet and EPA”. Her
presentation basically summed up all of the negative health effects that come
from carpet installation, carpet maintenance, and the all-around existence of
it. When she first mentioned this, I thought
the idea of it to be pretty funny and was initially skeptical. However, she made an increasingly enticing
argument with examples from her own life that made her case hard to ignore. Grandia gave some astounding statistics
regarding the negative health effects of carpet. There have been multiple instances of people
in concentrated areas (ie. Shared work environments) developing cancer with no
clear cause. These “cancer clusters” can
appropriately be explained by these people’s exposure to the same hazardous
carpet in such places like universities, or just shared spaces in office
buildings.
I feel like this lecture
relates to so many other aspects of our society where we place money and
production ahead of human health.
These carpet
companies are only concerned with the money they can make, rather than
improving their product or methods of installment so that they are safer for
people and the environment.
I feel that
in terms of this class, artists can use their work to spread awareness about
these types of underlying issues that are present in our society.
In the past, artists have had success
creating striking pieces of art to convey environmental issues, so I feel like
the same could be done to raise awareness about this phenomenon.
I really enjoyed learning about these topics
that I had never even heard about. I would especially recommend attending one
of Liza Grandia’s presentations because she is incredibly engaging and fun to
listen to.
For my second event, I attended the Chemical Entanglements
Symposium and had the opportunity to hear from multiple female speakers about
different hazards, and unknown truths about the way we interact with chemicals
on a day to day basis. My favorite
lecturer of the day was Liza Grandia, who’s presentation was titled, “Sickly
Green: a parable of carpet and EPA”. Her
presentation basically summed up all of the negative health effects that come
from carpet installation, carpet maintenance, and the all-around existence of
it. When she first mentioned this, I thought
the idea of it to be pretty funny and was initially skeptical. However, she made an increasingly enticing
argument with examples from her own life that made her case hard to ignore. Grandia gave some astounding statistics
regarding the negative health effects of carpet. There have been multiple instances of people
in concentrated areas (ie. Shared work environments) developing cancer with no
clear cause. These “cancer clusters” can
appropriately be explained by these people’s exposure to the same hazardous
carpet in such places like universities, or just shared spaces in office
buildings.
I feel like this lecture
relates to so many other aspects of our society where we place money and
production ahead of human health. These carpet
companies are only concerned with the money they can make, rather than
improving their product or methods of installment so that they are safer for
people and the environment. I feel that
in terms of this class, artists can use their work to spread awareness about
these types of underlying issues that are present in our society. In the past, artists have had success
creating striking pieces of art to convey environmental issues, so I feel like
the same could be done to raise awareness about this phenomenon. I really enjoyed learning about these topics
that I had never even heard about. I would especially recommend attending one
of Liza Grandia’s presentations because she is incredibly engaging and fun to
listen to.
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