Kristi Boivin
The Bag Revolution is a movement to promote awareness of conserving our resources. By re-using this bag you are saving energy, waste build-up, trees, and the atmosphere. This bag is also promoting UWSP student artwork reflecting their thoughts on environmental issues.
The Bag Revolution is part of a Student Public Art Symposium project at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. It is sponsored by The Student Government Association and the Carlsten Gallery Student Advisory Committee. A sum of $4,000 was given out to students who applied for this opportunity. When a professor stated that public art could be in any form of media, I thought about public art as a way to show awareness in different forms: to promote art and the environment. I thought of an idea to hand out canvas bags with the artwork of fellow UWSP students printed on them. With this project my ultimate goal was to see people using the canvas bags at the grocery store instead of paper or plastic bags.
My budget was $2000 and with that amount I purchased 500 organic canvas bags from ecobags.com. With the artwork on the bags I asked four artists who care about environmental issues to be involved with the project. With five different designs, we had 100 bags from each design. The artists are Jamie Karoses, Megan Petermann, Eva Heule, Courtney Stevens and myself.
The bags were handed out during Earth Week: Monday, April 16 2007. A tent was set up on campus in a high traffic area in the center of the college. The event started at 8 am and went until 5 pm. Amazingly, the bags sold out that day. I had planned for the event to stretch over two days, but the demand for these bags was incredible. The donation was $3 a bag, and the money was donated to the University Sustainability Committee to do something positive on campus for the environment.
Bag Revolution Logo
Bag Revolution Ad
Bag Revolution Group
The Five Designs
The Five Bags
