点废成绿 Greening the Beige (GtB) is an eco-minded arts collective and not-for-profit community network dedicated to nurturing awareness of environmental issues. 点废成绿 GtB promotes and celebrates earth friendly artists and organizations in Beijing.
"Why are we being forced to choose between the economy and the environment? We tend to forget that without an environment we would not have an economy, as everything we consume and I mean everything comes from our environment."
~ Franke James (contemporary artist, photographer, writer)
Beijing's landfills are getting full fast! Reduce the "trash" you throw away by purchasing products with minimal packaging. Look for reusable, recyclable, and biodegrable items and remember to carry your reusable shopping bags!
In the elevator of Joy City mall, which rises 10 floors and traps its occupants in a cubic illusion of escalators which skip floors and are never paired with one going in the opposite direction, there is a miniature screen. The screen is above the buttons. It gives people something to stare at other than the ascending or descending floor numbers. The screen shows a succession of images: a waterfall, a mountain landscape, and a peaceful woodland. In the basement parking lot of this same joyous city, the walls feature silhouettes of African animals. This parking safari touches on the same nerve as the elevator slideshow.
So does the tourism industry, and the real estate business, which both use natural images to draw in customers. In a photo book about the Chaoyang district, there is a caption underneath an aerial image of Chaoyang Park. It reads: “this is a green city with a lot of grass, trees, a pluralistic culture and sound public services all of which work to enhance the harmonious existence between man and nature.”
I don’t know what is harmonious about a mall which is the size of a township and tricks people by sending them on escalators which funnel directly into a clothing stores. I wasn’t trying to go buy jeans from your “trendy collections,” I was trying to descend several floors at a time so I could exit.
Nature appeals to people. It is clear from the start that children like animals. Most Chinese kids know how to say “tiger” in English. There aren’t many tigers left. In so many cases the very thing that appeals to us is what we harm.
There are many giant billboards around the city which show photographs of apartments to come. One such board shows an apartment building covered in flowers, floating on a pillow of natural vegetation with a view of expansive greenery. There are ads in the subway in which a family of three sits in a tree house, a rolling hillside in the background. The ad is for real estate. What’s really at the base of these apartments? I think the only grass is being parked on.
