Durban artist Janet Solomon, together with Friends of the Durban Art Gallery, are convening an interdisciplinary panel discussion entitled From Image to Action at the gallery on Thursday, July 30 Jfrom 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm to inspire sustainable behaviour through visual forms and thereby join the dots between imagery and the natural environment.

“We need to move from focusing on the recurrent themes of ecological disaster in order to expand on viewers’ perceptions and discourse,” suggests Solomon.

“The aim of From Image to Action is to consider the notion of visualising the future of our world; moving beyond an analysis of the environment, and issues such as climate change, to discuss more meaningful ways in which we can use visual media to inspire more pervasive forms of green acting and living.

“We live in a time of the mass production and wholesale consumption of images. We also live in a time that is mindful of the effects that collective human action is having on the environment and the planet as a whole. Human intervention has meant that our ecosystems are profoundly altered. Acknowledging this demands new approaches to visuality in order to speak to the challenges of understanding that human life, earth systems, and species are interconnected.

“I am profoundly aware that we need to have conversations examining an eco-philosophical viewing practice and we need to consider how this new visuality can encourage dialogue and action.”

Panellists for the evening include: ornithologist David Allan; curator and arts commentator, Carol Brown; community activist Desmond D’Sa; arts administrator Russel Hlongwane; freelance editor and artist Fran Saunders; scholar Ammara Vaid and Solomon herself. The session will be adjudicated by art-maker Vuli Nyoni.

The context for the panel discussion is Solomon’s one person exhibition of photographs and paintings Green Screen currently on the walls of the DAG. The intention of the exhibition is to set up associations between reality and artifice, death and life.

The term “Green Screen” is used in the digital world when an image of a subject is taken against a green background.  The green is then erased and replaced by a different background thus manipulating reality.

Solomon compares this technique to the way in which museums traditionally displayed groups of people or animals in dioramas. This results in a false sense of reality, comparable to how the Green Screen manipulates the digital image.

This is Solomon’s fifth solo show, comprising more than 30 works from 2011 to 2014.

 From Image to Action will take place at the Durban Art Gallery on the 2nd Floor, City Hall, Anton Lembede Street. For more information contact Jabu Mngwengwe at 031 3112264/8 or email Jabu.Mngwengwe@durban.gov.za. Entry is free.