Ada Mojhan is an artist inspired by the living planet and finding creative ways in which humans can continue to live on it. Her work focuses on: climate change, human impacts on the environment and systems of land management through a range of different mediums including activism, demonstration, conversation prompting, as well as painting, drawing and photography. Her central view is that it is the job of artists to help fight against environmental degradation in our societies and in our world as a whole. Through highlighting human negative impact on the environment in visual form, the artist hopes to promote peoples understanding since visual cues are very often much easier to understand than the written word. It is hoped also that the work can be more accessible to the general public rather than those familiar with looking at art.
The artists work demonstrates a desire to be heard on key environmental issues. She is actively participating in the global quest to increase biodiversity levels through rewilding and believes passionately that we need systematic change to positively effect the levels of greenhouse gases we are emitting, or more specifically, which large corporations in industry are emitting. On a local level, she is using her artistic voice to challenge the control which large building developers are having on our rural areas. This control is coming from the central government. As is often the case in a capitalist country it is not always the ‘need’ that is pushing this momentum. Large developers and land speculators seem to be making the most gains in the form of huge profits, and lobbying the government to allow for this. Subsequently, the negative effect of this on ecology as well as the effects on the safety of our towns from flooding, pollution and climate change is threatening our lives and very existence.
Britains ecology is in a dire state. ‘The government’s own assessment, published in August 2016 found that a hundred and fifty of two hundred so-called priority species are still falling in numbers across the country and we are in imminent danger of losing 10-15 percent of our species overall. It is tempting to assume that such declines are no different to the rest of the world. But they are different. Using the ‘biodiversity intactness index’ – a new system that measures the condition of the country’s biodiversity – the updated 2016 State of Nature report discovered that the uk has lost significantly more biodiversity over the long term than the world average. Ranked twenty-ninth lowest out of 218 countries, we are among the most nature depleted countries in the world. (Tree, 2018 Wilding) ‘The world lives within us: we live within the World. By damaging the living planet we have diminished our existence.’ (Monbiot, 2017, How Did We Get into this Mess?)
Danger from Flooding is more present than ever in Britain today. Excess housing in this area negatively affects the effectiveness of natural flood plains. No amount of man made structure is more efficient than water being soaked into the ground as a consequence of opening the rivers to their natural floodplains, and allowing plants and animals to use the water meadows which form, such as has been achieved at Chimney Meadows nearby. This also takes away the need for the constant upkeep of waterways, flood defence structures and channels. The extra housing, especially those on natural floodplains, are hugely increasing chances of flooding in the West Oxfordshire area. Building on floodplains means losing areas which would be perfect for rewilding. This raises biodiversity levels and provides important wildlife corridors connecting habitats with waterways as well as mitigating against flooding. ‘Natural flood management can help deliver more expansive landscape changes than has previously been the case, while also saving money and delivering other benefits alongside flood protection, thus benefiting the environment, society and the economy.’ (Scottish Environment Protection Agency, 2015, Natural Flood Management Handbook)
In order to mitigate against the effects of Global Warming we must leave natural resources in the ground.
As we know, the earth has a finite amount of these. Growth and building work uses these in the form of mineral extraction. Mills have had to expand facility to extract minerals in order to accommodate the huge amount of building in the local area. Nature allows for the capture and storage of CO2 which is negatively affecting the planet in the form of global warming. Green spaces with trees and plants are very good at storing carbon. Most notably, water meadows are one of the best carbon capturers. Building more and more housing developments are also using up nonrenewable natural mineral resources and releasing carbon when these are taken out of the ground. ‘Habitat destruction has not only been the lead cause of biodiversity loss, it has been, and continues to be one of the lead causes of greenhouse gas emissions. The world’s land plants and soils combined contain two to three times as much carbon as the atmosphere. By tearing down trees, burning forests, dredging wetlands and ploughing wild grasslands, we have released two-thirds of this historic stored carbon to date. Removing the wild has cost us dearly.’ (Attenburgh, 2020, A Life on Our Planet) Air pollution and runoff from the increase in cars to this village would also negatively affect the planet as well as effecting the health of people and nature. Alternatively, wild spaces allow polluting chemicals and gases to be soaked up by both plants and soil.
Every one of us is concerned in some way about having a healthy lifestyle. As well as being important for wildlife, green spaces and nature is of vital importance to our health and wellbeing as humans, and in fact low biodiversity levels even threaten our very existence. In relation to the proposed building in an area close to where she lives, Ada Mojhan says, “There is a field that the villagers have walked through for years that they call ‘The Moors’ on the edge of a small village called Ducklington. The villagers love it. Myself and my kids love it. It’s next to a stream and it’s next to our allotments. People’s kids have walked though the field to school for decades, they’ve played there, looked at insects, maybe been lucky enough to see a young badger cub playing in the morning dew. Maybe those kids have taken that breath of fresh air with them through that stressful day at school. During lockdown people escaped from within the four walls of their house to sit amongst nature here. In short, it is a common natural area essential to the mental health of local people. This field should be rewilded, not covered in concrete.” It is the absolute necessity to nurture the wildlife we have left both within our local areas, and within ourselves. This is primarily what is most important to the artist and, more than anything, is what her work is about. Every one of us has a part to play and every one of us must use our skills and knowledge and passions to play this part to its best possible end.
Ada Mojhan is in the process of setting up Wild Witney which is a local group that hopes to join in the fight to save local areas from development, subsequently rewilding these places as well as council owned areas. Although this plan is still in its early stages, it is getting positive support and feedback.