Featuring: Kristina Johansen

Article
By Ollie Nicholas
24/09/19

Subtitle

If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined: How resource extraction impacts our environment.

Contents

1. Kristina Johansen

2. If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined

3. Ambition & Inspiration

New Minds 2019 Winner: Kristina Johansen

Kristina Johansen graduates from London College of Communication with an impressive range of projects under her belt, including her final graduate piece; ‘If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined’. Kristina is focused on addressing social issues such as equality and sustainability, and hopes to utilise collaborative partnerships that can have a positive impact on the world.

Subtitle

If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined: How resource extraction impacts our environment.

Contents

1. Kristina Johansen

2. If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined

3. Ambition & Inspiration

Kristina Johansen graduates from London College of Communication with an impressive range of projects under her belt, including her final graduate piece; ‘If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined’. Kristina is focused on addressing social issues such as equality and sustainability, and hopes to utilise collaborative partnerships that can have a positive impact on the world.
1. Kristina Johansen

My name’s Kristina Johansen. I am originally from Birmingham, but now live in London. Prior to settling here I was fortunate to live abroad in both Vancouver and Augsburg, a little gem of a town outside Munich. I loved travelling and living in these places as I got to spend a load of time in the mountains, which to me is the absolute highlife.

I’ve recently graduated from UAL with an Interaction Design Arts degree - a multidisciplinary design degree centred around people, incorporating sociology, psychology, anthropology and sustainability into the design process. 
 
I’ve always been interested in the design of spaces and how people’s environment impacts upon their experience, and how it can influence people’s mood and productivity, especially in an educational setting.  Whilst working for a charity in Birmingham, I carried out a redesign of the charity’s communal areas to promote a sense of community and integration. Doing this project prompted me to look into interior architecture courses and it was through doing this that I happened to stumble across the Interaction Design Arts course at LCC. A student’s project from the course caught my eye as they’d co-designed a disused green space in front of a housing estate with local residents in order to develop a creative environment for rest and play. I went along to a university open day just to learn a bit more and ended up having an interview with the course tutor which led to me being offered a place on the course. It was a happy accident really. I didn’t have a big portfolio, I hadn’t even done art and design for A-level, but the tutor said my passion for using art and design to make a positive impact in society really came through so he gave me a shot. 

If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined Installation by Kristina Johansen

My practice is definitely not medium specific. The main thing for me is always the environmental or social issue which I’m trying to create discussions around. That’s what motivates me. I try and use art and design to reveal injustices and inequalities in the world. I see the medium as an instrument to try and achieve this. It’s of course important, but it’s just not my first consideration.
 
I’ve always been interested in and researched ‘wicked problems’ - social issues such as equality and sustainability that have multiple root causes, which are interlinked to a plethora of other issues such as education and the economy. ‘Wicked problems’ can’t be ‘fixed’ with one perfect solution, but can have solutions which may mitigate the problem. As I’ve always been interested in these issues, I felt really lucky to be able to dedicate more time to researching and writing essays on such topics during my studies. During my course I split my time between doing this and developing my design skills. It just made sense to me to marry the two and use design to highlight current issues in the world. I was also lucky enough to be taught by the artists Caitlin Shepherd and Wesley Goatley who were both really inspirational in their teachings about design activism and sustainable design. 

2. If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined

Anything we can’t grow we have to extract from the Earth in one way or another. Our everyday items are made from elements which have been extracted from different mines that are located all around the world. ‘If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined’ is an interactive shopping experience which explores the impact that mining industries have on the environment and local communities. Visitors to the shop can peruse the shelves and choose from a variety of everyday items. When their item is scanned at the checkout, a receipt prints out showing all of the elements which have had to be mined to make their chosen item, as well as a map showing which countries have the highest mined production of these elements. The shop’s ‘Lookbook’ visually shows the environmental and social impacts of the extraction process. 

What made you interested in exploring the impact of mining industries on the environment and communities?

The climate and ecological emergency that we find ourselves in is the most pressing problem of our time, so I wanted to create something which explores the destruction that is being done to the environment. I decided to focus on the mining industries as this is a strong example where mankind is using nature and the Earth as if it is a machine that they can control as a pure commodity. Also, I think people are sometimes quick to just think about the factory where an item is made, instead of thinking about the stage before the factory, such as the impact that is caused by the extraction of raw materials. Take a smartphone for example, of the 118 elements of the periodic table, 75 of them are found in a single smartphone. And all of these elements have had to be extracted from different mines located all around the globe. In this process, huge amounts of earth is displaced and spoilt, biodiversity is destroyed, vast quantities of water are used for processing and enormous areas of toxic wasteland are created. At every stage of extraction fossil fuels are squandered for energy. From blasting the ore in furnaces, to processing the minerals into components, to shipping the products around the globe to arrive in your local shop. The scale of modern resource extraction has reached a mind-boggling, dangerously high level.

If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined Installation by Kristina Johansen

Why did you feel it was best to express these ideas through a hands on ‘shopping’ experience?

Often actions carried out by the Global North have negative impacts on the Global South. The destruction doesn’t happen in the UK so we don’t see it first hand. I wanted to connect mining, an issue which often seems far away from us, with everyday life. People can relate to shopping and everyday items, so I wanted to show how an individual’s consumption habits link with the destructive nature of mining. 

By creating a hands on experience, it got people more involved and created a space whereby I could enter into discussions with people about the issue. Also the ‘shopping’ experience enabled me to tackle a complex and quite heavy subject in a more engaging and fun way. I think the aesthetic of the shop and the use of colour in particular, drew people in. 

If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined Installation by Kristina Johansen

How do you hope that your project will help combat the effect of the mining industry? 

I hope my project will prompt people into discussions around the impacts of mining industries, and lead them to reconsider their behaviours and to take action. We live in a society where overconsumption is rife and ultimately we need to consume less. We need to resist needless trends and upgrades and the idea that new is ‘better.’ We need to value things by how much use we’ll get out of them. However, individual consumer choices is just one contributing element to the changes we need to make. Where your influence really kicks in is the way that you push for the cultural change and the political change that we need to see.

Our current systems of governance are compromised by a focus on profits and economic growth. Politicians and the media can be lobbied by corporations that prioritise profits over damages to the environment and communities. We need an economic system that doesn’t allow companies to pollute without being penalised. We need a legal system which supports this. We need to shift our energy systems away from fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases and towards renewable energies that don’t.

Culture and the stories told in the media need to reflect the severity of the environmental crisis.

I hope my project may prompt people to think about what they can do as individuals, such as joining Extinction Rebellion and taking action, writing to companies and asking them to be greener, and boycotting companies that have policies that are bad for the environment. Ethical Consumer is a good source for finding out companies' policies. Also, I hope my project encourages people to think globally. Joining the ‘London Mining Network’ is one way to show solidarity to communities around the world as it is an organisation that supports communities that have been negatively impacted due to mining operations carried out by companies that are based in London. In April this year, the UK Supreme Court granted 2000 Zambian villagers the right to sue the London-based mining giant Vedanta for poisoning their water source through copper mining. Global Witness’s website is also a good resource to explore more about the exploitation of natural resources. I’d also recommend the author Naomi Klein’s work.

If It’s Not Grown It’s Mined Receipt

Are there any of your other projects that you would like to share with our readers? If so please expand (1).

‘Only Some Welcome’ is a visual scale showing the power ranking of passports. Each passport is scaled in size according to how many countries it enables you to travel to visa-free. For many people, passports are synonymous with going on holiday and are simply passes to be able to enjoy travelling. To others less fortunate, their passport limits their movement around the globe which, depending on their situation, can be life threatening. I wanted to highlight the inequality of passports. 

In the photo, from largest to smallest: United States of Emirates, South Korea, United States of America, United Kingdom, Russia, South Africa, China, India, North Korea, Afghanistan.

‘Only Some Welcome’ by Kristina Johansen

Are there any of your other projects that you would like to share with our readers? If so please expand (2).

'The Minimum Wage Machine' (2016) is a visual depiction of the minimum wage in the UK. The machine releases one penny every 5 seconds. After one hour the machine has released 720 pennies, the minimum wage in the UK for somebody 25 years and over (2016).

Minimum Wage after 1 hour’s work vs Average Wage of a FTSE 100 CEO after 1 hour’s work:
£7.20 vs £1250.00.

Are there any of your other projects that you would like to share with our readers? If so please expand (3).

'Hackney: The Good Stuff' is a website that shows all of the socially-conscious organisations in and around Hackney. The website encompasses many different types of ‘good stuff’ going on in Hackney, be it organisations which people can get involved with and volunteer with, or plastic-free supermarkets trying to tackle the plastic waste problem. Organisations can be filtered by causes or by what skills or interests you have.

3. Ambition & Inspiration

The organisation Global Witness inspires me. They campaign to end environmental and human rights abuses driven by the exploitation of natural resources and corruption in the global political and economic system. I’m inspired by individuals / groups who don’t just accept the world as it is and how we are told to navigate it. 
 
In the future I would like to collaborate more - I would love to work more as a collective, because then you have different people bringing different skills and views to the table.

As well as working on projects which reveal injustices and inequalities, I want to work on projects which visually show and create alternative ways of doing things which are beneficial for the environment and for communities. 
 
I would also like to do a project which looks at human’s damage to ecosystems and biodiversity, and visually show how this will affect us in the near future; such as bringing climate change out of the atmosphere and into people’s homes so that people wake up to the idea that climate change is a huge public health problem.

I would also like to work on a project which in some way helps migrants and refugees in Greece, especially unaccompanied minors. 

In your opinion, how can creativity change the World?

I don’t think creativity alone can change the world, but it can be a contributing factor and catalyst for change. I do think creativity can play a big part in changing the way people look at the world. It can connect the familiar with the unfamiliar or connect things which aren’t usually related, which can prompt people to see things in a different light.

Creativity can be used as a tool to engage and motivate people. As a result of this, there is the potential to evoke empathy, trigger reflection, create discussion and prompt action. With creativity you can create ideas and images of things not yet seen or experienced. It can be used to create an alternative story and to show people how things could be if change happens.

  • Featuring: Kristina Johansen

Bibliography

Kristina Johansen (kristinajohansen.com)
Global Witness (www.globalwitness.org)
Extinction Rebellion (rebellion.earth)
Ethical Consumer (www.ethicalconsumer.org)
London Mining Network (londonminingnetwork.org)

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