ColumnA retrospective: 2011 in heART.

The fusion of conscious art and sustainability into what we now call heARTbeat was first published this year in May. Seven months and dozens of heARTbeats later, we bring you the top five stories that made you take pause.

#5:  heARTbeat: #walkingtoworktoday Project by Michael Surtees

After this was published in July, Michael wrote to me:

I just wanted to mention how much I appreciate you taking the time to write a post about #walkingtoworktoday. You’ve given it a huge boost. It has been an interesting experiment watching how photo sharing has evolved and fragmented over the years. When I first started it, email and uploading images to Flickr from a mobile phone was slightly unusual. Now with apps like instagram it has become second nature.

#4: heARTbeat: Qi Wei’s Exploded Flowers Portend the End of a Season

Photography is a crowd pleaser with our readers, and Qi Wei’s Exploded Flowers struck a chord with a fresh take on perennial flora favorites.

#3: heARTbeat: Tomaas’ Photographs Consider Plastic as “The New Black”

Tomaas has a clean, advertising quality to his work that works beautifully for editorial. No wonder we all loved it. He’s selling reuse of the most ubiquitous and toxic throwaways in existence: plastic.

#2: heARTbeat: Ran Hwang’s Art Transcends The Idea of a Woman’s Work

Ran Hwang’s installations dazzle us with her scale and ambition. At the same time, the art of her labor forces us to stop and consider the time consuming results of these gorgeous odes to repetitive manual work.

#1: heARTbeat: Smoking Kids Photography by Frieke Janssens

Ultimately photography compelled our readers most in 2011. Frieke Janssen stunned us with a world that fortunately doesn’t exist, seducing nonetheless. Movie star looks and lighting give way to vignettes of children smoking. Janssen reminds us that anything in just the right light makes even addictive behavior that much more interesting to look at.

heARTbeat: Miru Kim’s Nudes – the Pig That Therefore I Am

Miru Kim’s bravery, sensitivity and originality made this my favorite heARTbeat of the year. With art, I aspire to be surprised, even a little shocked, and Kim does just that with this series.

Here’s to more artistic inspiration in the same vein in 2012.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her trends blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

The post heARTbeat: Our Readers’ Top 5 Favorites of 2011 appeared first on EcoSalon.

A fashion photographer gives us a fresh take on the ubiquity of plastic.

Plastic never fully decomposes. Over time it goes through a process of photo degradation and may break down into smaller and smaller pieces.  But as of this moment, every bit of plastic that has ever been created will never totally disappear.  What does it take to look at plastic differently, the remains of bottles, plastic wrap, straws and containers that are everywhere? What can we do to make them work for us, instead of throwing them into an “away” that doesn’t really exist?

Tomaas presents us with a view of plastic that has us consider the potential beauty of a material that we have a complex and inextricable relationship with.  The Plastic is the New Black series uses commonplace  items to embellish models with the very substance that surrounds all of us daily. The photographer’s context makes us see the medium in a new light – not that of trash, but fashion.

A German, Tomaas has spent most of his career working in New York. Originally a travel photographer, fashion and beauty seem a natural choice for him. His clean, boldly contrasting studio work lends itself to a certain, pristine conceptual expression. This series is a case in point.

What was your motivation for Plastic Fantastic?

Tomaas:  Prior to Plastic Fantastic…I’d shot a story called Eco-Beauty, using everyday materials.  It was published in several international magazines and exhibited at the Icon Gallery in NYC.  The team I worked with had such fun that we decided to do a similar shoot but focus on one material alone.  The more we researched, the more we became aware of plastic.  It’s everywhere and it’s so versatile. You could almost say that among materials, plastic is the “new black.” The story is an ode to this material.

We may not be ready to abandon our natural fibers and breathable fabrics.  But considering the ubiquity of the medium, and the fact that it isn’t going away any time soon, perhaps Tomaas is on to something.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

The post heARTbeat: Tomaas’ Photographs Consider Plastic as ‘The New Black’ appeared first on EcoSalon.