Earthworks’ Environmental Cartoons

There’s only so much straight news anyone can swallow, even when it is about the looming demise of life on this planet. So thank god for satirical cartoons, or to be precise: Earthworks 2008, a collection of environmental caricatures recently on show at City Hall.

The exhibit showed a selection of the best of 600 cartoons from around the world that were entered in this year’s Biennial Ken Sprague International Cartoon Competition. Cartoonists were invited to submit works on the subject of our threatened environment, particularly the impact of global warming.

After looking at 50 images in a row you do develop immunity to cracked earth and deforested tree stumps, however a good one in five cartoons caused me to express myself anywhere between a wry snort and a caustic cackle.

The laugh-o-meter shot the highest for All This Will Be Yours My Son by Serbia’s Miodrous Velickovic. This depicts a man standing with one arm round a wide eyed youngster and the other extended with a flourish to illustrate the overflowing rubbish heap they are standing over. The glazed half smiles of the figures involved shows with hilarity-inducing accuracy how little attention the average Joe pays to their surroundings.

There is always a fear with irreverent humour that you will cause serious types to choke on their Cornflakes, but as John Green, secretary of the Ken Sprague fund points out: ‘Cartoons can reach parts that other arguments can’t. We have been inundated with doom-laden predictions and scientific facts on the inevitability of global warming, but here we can exorcise our fears.’

And how familiar these fears are: from a laptop whose screensaver of tropical fish is the only colour in the desert that surrounds it, to the labourers rolling out a grass carpet complete with sheep over parched ground, this is stuff we sense is upon us but cannot bear to watch.

Competition entrants were from all over the world and there were allusions to real environmental disasters such as the Myanmar flood.

John Green had another point to make about using cartoons to express one of the most talked about concerns of 2008: ‘What is striking about all of them is how unnecessary language or translations become – the visual imagery transcends the need for words. Despite cultural and language barriers, most cartoonists have used an imagery that can be understood internationally, across cultural, religious or political barriers and boundaries.’

Let the last word go to someone who would like to be concerned about the environment but who is instantly bored by the subject, me: buy a print and be humorous and topical for a mere £10.

Unfortunately the exhibition ended at the weekend, however it is possible to see some of the featured cartoons at the Ken Sprague Fund website.

For further information please contact the Ken Sprague Fund:
tel: 02085793553
infor@kenspraguefund.org

Prints are £10 each and originals range from £25 -£100