CAMPAIGNS

The loss and erosion of iconic flora and fauna is due to man’s inability to stop culling and consuming. Humanity takes more than it needs and is completely out of balance with the living biosphere. This image, was documented from start to finish for a 60 second short doc for Citizen Solar Powered EcoDrive Watches.

Documentary Film poster about conscious capitalism.

Using a transverse section of the palm fruit as a base motif, I have illustrated various megafauna compromised by the expansion of Palm Oil plantations. The problem is particularly pronounced in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and India. The mass monoculture of this cash crop has had dire ecological ramifications on pristine rainforest habitats in these countries, and continues to pilfer what wild remains, unless our awareness alters the course of consumption.

Created for the youth organization “Climate Change is 4 Real” based out of San Diego, this image documents the clarity the youth have on proactively addressing “Climate Change” with “Climate Action.” The time has come to stop offering opinions and face the facts, as our collective future lies in our ability to confront truth and reality, even if it is uncomfortable or monetarily unappealing.

Birds bring business, in the countries where their populations are preserved, and their habitats are not compromised. This image was created for the National Audubon Society, to cast a light on how infrastructure growth in Central America is directly related to growth in tourism due to the presence of neotropical bird populations.

36" x 48"

Created for WWF USA, for the anniversary of the Annual Fuller Symposium, to cast a light on the theme of the event, what happens if global temperature goes up by two degrees.

Two degrees can make a considerable difference to our planet, and whether we do so or not remains within our hands. The thermometers portray precisely this change. The two degrees of temperature rise related differences are illustrated within the section of the fan going from a planet where we have ice sheets and thriving tundra ecosystems to a world with sea level rise and bleached corals. The human hands contain with their expanse a spectrum of solutions while taking responsibility for the problems that rise as a direct symptom of human impact.

The present, where we are seeing both negative and positive results of anthropogenic actions is articulated in the the middle, with some coral systems looking healthy, and some in a state of bleaching. The branching corals within the reef are more conspicuously bleached out to the right, as the terrestrial section details civilization as having gone further down the path we are on, by continuing business as usual. To turn a blind eye to the reality of climate change will drive us off the cliff, as evidenced by the car that is at the edge of the fan. We still have time to change the course we are on, as we perceive solutions that are being implemented to ensure sustainable growth. The two degree rise can be clearly attributed to the issues articulated in the far right top corner of the fan, deforestation, livestock, fossil fuel consumption by factories, transportation and the quest for fossil fuels.

The term 'Fan Out' denotes the number of inputs that can be connected to a specified output, so this piece examines these intrinsic associations. Additionally from afar the composition is clearly a hand held Chinese fan, the largest contributor apart from the United States to atmospheric carbon. Up close, the fan becomes a sliver of time and space on this finite planet, and as the viewer, you can navigate cause and consequence of climate change within its expanse, while also documenting individual climate mitigation measures.

Climate change has specific inputs, as does climate resilience, the prior is inevitable the latter is executable. The relationship between land and water is portrayed through the presence and absence of sea life like phytoplankton, zooplankton, and crustaceans, the wild flora and fauna that are the canaries in the marine coal mine. They signal the absorption of excessive quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The remaining animals portrayed in the blue, exemplify the food chain that stands to be affected by the change in ocean chemistry. This portrays that we are part of the whole and not apart from it. What we do to life around us, will come to affect us as well. This is why proactive measure to mitigate climate change is crucial to focus on.

Utilizing the age old optical illusion to portray the contrasting narrative positions assumed by two very distinctive human value systems, one that promotes coexistence while the other advances capitalism, and in the middle the very chalice of life, in this case the Leuser Ecosystem. What do you see?

Work created to portray humanity’s impact on planetary resources.

An image that explains the reason for the spread of corona virus. As we lose more species and habitats, there are less buffers between us and zoonotic pathogens. There are less organisms for these pathogens to occupy as well, so we become their primary and at times only host. Wildlife trafficking in bush meat and supply through wet markets that encourage the illegal consumption of exotic meats is the leading reason for the spread and release of zoonotic diseases in human populations.

To seed a tangible connection to the hard to grasp concept of 'climate change' Jay decided to tap into the one resource that makes every individual on earth relate to climate daily. The weather app. Found on every mobile interface, the vocabulary of pictographs symbolizing various weather phenomena used by all weather apps is both universally understood and used. Creating characters out of these well recognized icons, Jay not only introduces humor into the climate change conversation but gives the planet's climate a voice.
 

When Sherlock Holmes thinks dispassionately and lengthily about a mystery, he usually comes up with a solution. While people today are puzzling over the mysteries of climate change and climate action, wildlife and landscapes are going up in smoke.

"The youth are not the future, they are here now.

But they will have to deal with the ramifications of what happens now in the future.

If they fail to speak out and raise awareness and enable action today, they stand to lose tomorrow to ignorance, apathy, and inaction." COP21 Quote, Asher Jay

This work focuses on the importance of the Leuser Ecosystem for the entire globe. No matter where you live, the Leuser Ecosystem is providing you with a critical service: as one of the largest intact forests in Southeast Asia containing three of the planet’s most indispensable carbon-rich peatlands, the Leuser Ecosystem is vital for storing atmospheric carbon and preventing further global climate change. If the flap of a butterfly’s wing can trigger a tornado a thousand miles away, the health of the Leuser Ecosystem is connected directly to the air we all breathe and the health of our shared climate. In fact, the climate crisis simply cannot be solved without ensuring forests like the Leuser continue to thrive and hold their carbon underground. #LoveTheLeuser

The Pulse of the ecosystem lies within the heart of the Leuser rainforest, if that is destroyed by anthropogenic activities and myopic greed, we lose a complex and inimitable lifeline forever. Created for Rainforest Action Network.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” #mlk

It is absolutely atrocious that #GeorgeFloyd had to plead for the basic right to #breathe - to ask for something as non-negotiable, necessary and immediate as one’s next inhalation- details how devoid of humanity the man denying George Floyd of his right to live was. Those who should have most protected George Floyd wound up taking his life. Bullying and abuse of trust has no place in the law. Such people should not be in the employ of law enforcement. The cops who witnessed and failed to intervene are just as culpable as the cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. If we lack the humanity to be there for one another, within our own kind, our own species, then there is no hope for the planet. Broken people, break others. Viciousness is something we should strive to evolve past, it’s not an attribute to take pride in. I cannot believe that there are those who take pride in being racist. From Amy Cooper in CP to this horrific murder in broad daylight, racism should not be encouraged in any capacity. A man who condones or fails to condemn racism and hate crimes in the country he is meant to spearhead with grace & dignity, is not a leader. Please vote to improve our collective context! All LIFE matters. Instead of seeing race, we should each evolve our engagement within to see the life, the soul, the human being. Be wary of generalizations, be wary of herd mentality. “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

- MLK Jr. We must see all lives as equal, & not keep turning on one another. One world. One people, can only be realized through compassion.

Created in response to the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It portrays the web of death spun by the black widow that is the oil rig, placing humanity at the center of the spiral of loss.

One of the main problems with deep-water wells worldwide is that they are constructed at a depth that is inaccessible to the majority, consequently in the event that something goes wrong (like it has on numerous occasions) not enough technology is available to enough people to implement an immediate solution. Effective crisis management for such crises does not exist within the spectrum of reality just yet. Additionally when such a catastrophe befalls us, access to data regarding the topography around the source of the leak is inordinately limited, as not enough funds have been allocated toward the study of said topography.
 

This work describes humanity as having evolved into the grim reaper, with a fossil fuel pipeline for his scythe. It urges viewers to stop fueling life with death.

There are several logical arguments that strongly recommend we wean ourselves away from fossil fuels and opt for healthier, more sustainable energy systems. The top seven include: Ocean Acidification, climate crisis, changing landscapes, loss of biodiversity, simple mathematics (cost of a spill), and health. Oil wells and rigs are like ticking time bombs, it is only a matter of time before one blows, and mostly because someone tried to cut fiscal corners. I was personally very affected by the BP spill in 2010, when I saw the extent of devastation it caused and the number of animals and birds that were claimed by its gleaming iridescent expanse I was enraged, creating graphic art works was the only way I could lend a voice.

Nowadays I am specifically disconcerted by the Arctic circle. The BP catastrophe in the Gulf should have dissuaded us as a collective from expanding on our fossil fuel dependency. The BP spill should have reigned in our off-shore drilling efforts and effectively shut down the oil rush in the frigid Northern hemisphere. Due to retreating sea ice however, the Arctic- a previously inaccessible region- is now well within the range of fossil fuel patrons, and big oil companies who cannot wait to get a drill in! A spill is inevitable; it is only a matter of time before the receding blanket of white too endures a calamitous black leak.

This piece relies on two sets of lines to build a contrast, the horizontal stripes of the American flag, and the vertical bars of the same width that suggest captivity. This juxtaposition casts a light on the chasm we have come to perpetuate between our present and our past, which is to the detriment of our future.

We are all made of the same stuff. Wild is where we come from, wild is why we are, wild is how we will continue to thrive.

Animal rights have always been an implicit part of my experience and vocabulary as an artist, a woman, and a human being, and this ubiquitous awareness ultimately led to my becoming an activist. The way I see it, we humans are animals, and we seem to think we deserve certain inalienable “rights.”

However, by not extending these “rights” or “freedoms” to other life forms that cohabit this planet with us as living markers of our own evolutionary and biological development, we ultimately deny ourselves the full potential of these rights.

By denying the parts of us that thrive outside our physical form as wild biodiversity, we are failing to acknowledge our own lineage and story.

This particular work references how nature assimilates our story, over time. The tree ring pattern embeded within the rhino silhouette, portrays how each species exemplifies a specific record of time within the shared history of Planet Earth. Inspired by an early memory of the Giant Sequoia transverse section hanging at the British Natural History Museum, this work contemplates how the Sequoia chornologically documented chapters of human history, from the spread of Christianity, the rise of islam, to the death of Joan of Arc, until the day it was felled. When we take a life, we interrupt and inhibit the osmotic dialogue between all living things that transcends the linearity of tenses, we create breaks in what is otherwise a continuous, and complex narrative. The primary horn of the rhino, reinterprets the sand timer as a blood timer, while the secondary horn displays a metronome with an Ak-47 oscillating back and forth, pacing out the future of this species one shot at a time. The eye of the rhino contains a clock that has its hands at a second before midnight, because if we were to compress geological time in 24 hours, human beings would have manifested only a second before midnight. We, as a species, have had all this impact within that second. We are a small blip on the giant radar of life, but our imprint on this planet is as pronounced as the meteor that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. Perhaps in growing aware of our impact, we can consciously choose to make that impact, positive.

The second image in a series of three, shows an elephant with a tree ring pattern imposed into its silhouette. Like the rhino, the eye of this elephant is composed of a clock that has its hands at a second before midnight, evoking a commentary on human significance. A pendulum with a target swings back and forth, placing a constant mark on the animal, compromising its survival in the wild. The tusk is burning down, resulting in a pile of ashes, which references the confiscated blood ivory stockpiles that are being crushed and cremated in various countries. The blood ivory crisis is a prevalent conservation crime of the Anthropocene, it is a soulless trade that makes a currency of death, by commoditizing life. It condones irreverent consumerism. There is no compassion, compunction or common sense dictating the next take, and that makes the take result in the potential extinction of this highly sentient, social species.

This piece encourages people to empower themselves by reestablishing contact between the wild within and the wild beyond. It impels the viewer to enable a framework of coexistence, by bearing in mind every page of the biological storybook that delivered us, humans, to our current narrative moment. In the end, it is not just important to embrace a new energy economy, as denoted by the energy-efficient light-bulb sprouting from the man's head in this illustration, but to evolve our consciousness to a higher energy orbital. The spiral of the bulb is referential of the helical structure assumed by the building blocks of all life, DNA, which further underscores unity.

Wildlife trafficking, particularly the poaching of rhinos for their horns, is the scourge of our times. This barbaric trade illustrates the corrosion of humanity, the loss of values, disintegration of integrity and disengagement within our selves. It shows how far we have chipped away at what makes us human.

We don't see the true value of a tiger, if we did, we wouldn't allow for the atrocious way in which they are being trapped and slaughtered in the wild, and farmed in captivity for TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) Tiger Bone Wine, and Tiger Bone Cake. Other big cats are being slaughtered for the same market products, and none of them have any scientifically backed curative and health benefits.

Campaign run in 2013 by Elephant Voices.

The material an artist uses is critical to the message sent across to the viewers. The medium is the message. So to use ivory for any artistic or educational statement is unacceptable. In all the years that I have created campaigns for wildlife, I have never had to use wildlife products to do so. It is a black and white issue, because it is a life and death issue. Do not seed an us versus them paradigm by using the very contraband that you are against the use of. It is illogical.

Rhino horn has no medicinal value, to perpetuate it's use only validates the false claim that this product provides the ignorant with a cure or health benefit. This is why neither Pembient's apporach of flooding the markets with 3D printed horns with the DNA signature of extant rhinos is wrong, as is rhino farming. Keep rhinos wild, and alive.

With less than 250 West African Lions scattered across six nations, this subspecies that is more closely related to the Asiatic lion is fast running out of time.

With less than 250 West African Lions scattered across six nations, this subspecies that is more closely related to the Asiatic lion is fast running out of time.

This image portrays Rhinos as the high value asset that needs to be handed down to the next generation. Protecting wild rhinos will ensure that the next generation will not only have access to this iconic land mammal but also be able to generate sustained revenue through local ecotourism. While wild has intrinsic value, it is important to promote their economic worth alive.

An extension of the previous campaign. Jay created two iterations of the same concept, one campaign for South Africa and one for Botswana to assure both countries that the translocation of rhinos from SA to Botswana was being done in the best interest of future generations in both nations.
 

All Eyes On stripes: Sensual. Strong. Solitary. 

The motif that was repeated to create the initial utterance of a tiger on the canvas, was an illustrated human eye. The eye offers a conceptual connection to the cat. The eye represents: Awareness. Articulation. Vulnerability. The eye receives and emits light. It looks out and looks in. It is a window to peer through, to reach the soul and the world, a symbol that is revealing and perceiving, seeing through and true.  The eye illuminates, understands, expresses, protects, singes, and stares. We can feel truly known by the way another’s eyes take us in and experiences despair and sorrow at being “unseen.” 

Apart from poaching the active destruction of habitat, encroachment as a consequence of infrastructure growth and human-wildlife conflict are the other main causes of population decline for tigers.

This work describes not only a loss of individuals from the overall elephant count in the annual census but also the disintegration of elephant families and by extension the unraveling of deeply engaged elephant societies. We are losing an elephant every 15 minutes at the hands of a poacher, which means elephants are losing family members that are vital to their growth and assimilation of trans-generational knowledge. Without such cultural context, an elephant is no longer able to psychologically and emotionally be an elephant in the world today. Much like human beings, elephants are highly gregarious beings that mourn for their dead and connect to their living relatives routinely, when deprived of these natural interactions, elephants become disengaged, damaged and dysfunctional. 

With the aim of doubling the number of people supporting Tx2, Asher has linked the “T” for tigers to thumbs and is asking people to make a unique pledge to tiger conservation by posting
their “thumbs up for tigers” photo on social media - giving the Tx2 goal not just one, but TWO thumbs up! Thumbs x 2 = Tx2!

The theme of thumbs links perfectly to tigers because each tiger’s stripe pattern is unique to them - just like our finger prints are to us.

Supported by WWF, UNDP, Dot Asia and the Tigers for Tigers coalition, the campaign runs from 22nd - 29th July 2016.

Each tiger is perfect, engineered by evolution to curate the specific context it inhabits. Only a tiger knows how to be tiger. Tigers, like every other terrestrial species currently compromised by anthropogenic stress, do have a voice. Tigers have a voice, but we aren't listening. We don't hear what they have to say, and we simply do not see.

These magnificent big cats are starved, and kept in appalling conditions in tiger farms in east Asian nations, and after a short miserable life they are culled barbarically for their bones. The bones are steeped in rice wine for 50 days then sold as a potency elixir.

Stalkers and ambush artists, they hunt with lethal prowess. Each tiger is perfect, to take away its strips and place it behind bars, is to take away the essence of the tiger, and break the wild beast of its spirit and reason to exist. Agile, silent, luxuriant, with sun-like magnanimity, they sift stealthily through grass and jungle as fierce survivors, impregnated with a sovereign purpose; to me they are the devouring divine. They certainly command more respect than we afford them in our bottom-line oriented world. 

The largest chorus line on earth is being silenced one instrument at a time.

The consumer demand for wildlife products, exotic meats and pets, to produce snake oil cures for human ailments and assert status or individuality for the elite have created profit markets that bank on extinctions in the Anthropocene. This has resulted in a global market place that illegally capitalizes on the exploitation of our planet’s finite natural resources to cater the myopic vested interests of a few, at the cost of many. More recently, this demand has trebled with a rise in the purchasing power of a burgeoning middle class, which has implied the inevitable demise of various species.

Only as a conscientious collective can we end such blood stained commerce. Any paradigm that values death above life, is not sustainable, and since we are but one form assumed by life, it is to our disadvantage to perpetuate such self eroding economic models.

Stop cooking our oceans. This work describes how burning fossil fuels is resulting in warmer, more acidic waters for marine biodiversity.

A commentary on how carbon emissions results in ocean acidification.

Depicts Dr Sylvia Earle, and begs the viewer to ask of themselves what her Deepness does each day, "How can an individual have impact?"

The work, entitled "Code Blue" is self explanatory in premise. It describes the flat-lining of the pulse of the oceans. A scanned bar-code, that traces a graph describing the rise in fishing vessels in the world's oceans over the last century, extends beyond the plate into the oceans where each sea creature is nothing more than a netted commodity awaiting a moment of frozen aisle transaction. The red plate (a reference to the seafood centric culture in the land of the rising sun) has cutlery crossed on it, to illustrate that its time we stopped eating marine wildlife, and found alternate sources of sustainable protein nourishment. The copy reads "Today's Catch? Yesterday's Wildlife. Read between the lines."

Blue whales, the largest mammal on earth, subsist on the smallest living organism - plankton. They are intelligent enough to realize this, and thus utilize their excrement to fertilize plankton blooms by consciously discarding their waste into mineral rich upwellings in the ocean, where nutrient rich water circulates up to the surface, creating the right conditions for marine farming. Blue Whales are natural farmers, and grow their own food. They know how to repurpose waste, humanity still does not.

This work contains fishing vessels of various sizes, both industrial and recreational harvesting the breath of biodiversity from the blue expanse. The vessels are placed along the outer rim of the planet, to evoke a clock. The network of lines that shape the undulating expanse illustrates the number of lines waiting to hook or sieve out fresh 'catch' irrespective of the hour. The campaign ultimately challenges the viewer to dwell on the uncomfortable but obvious question, "What's wrong with this picture?" The query is in rhetoric, as it clearly suggests a reality where relentless, unregulated anthropogenic take will result in the presence of more marine life on land than in the world's oceans. That's why industrial fisheries worldwide need to be heavily monitored and regulated. Commercial vessels take without compassion, compunction or comprehension, inevitably destroying the very system that supports all life on earth. To further contemplate consequences, I have overlaid a UN FAO pie chart census on the impact of overfishing on global fish stocks. The lightest and brightest quadrant depicts the species that are either depleted or over-exploited. The darker blue portrays those stocks that are moderately exploited, and the small deep green slice by 12 'o' clock denotes those species that are in recovery from over-exploitation. This piece conveys in a glance how our current structure of converting marine commons into commodities fails to account for the inevitable depletion of a finite, shared asset.

This image holds the land of the rising sun accountable for the slaughter of dolphins in its seascape in Taiji by portraying their national flag as a blood stain from the cull.

The trade in illicit contraband directly fuels acts of terror in African Nations and in the world. Arms, drugs and human trafficking has time and again gone hand in hand with the trafficking of illegally procured wildlife products.

The trade in illicit contraband directly fuels acts of terror in African Nations and in the world. Arms, drugs and human trafficking has time and again gone hand in hand with the trafficking of illegally procured wildlife products.

We all emerge from the same folds of time, space and substance. Jay uses origami crease diagrams to illustrate this premise.

Design sketch for actual installations of aquariums filled with marine debris.

Image created to reflect what it means to be Native American after leaving an Indian Reservation. This illustration by Asher Jay, the author of this piece, portrays a man whose identity is in question, whose individual voice is in need of being amplified, whose headdress is composed of directions he could take if he was allowed the freedom to be, and who has a butterfly, a symbol of metamorphosis on his forehead. His ear lobes are covered in symbols that represent a compass and a target leaving who is within quotation marks, i.e. labels uttered by the outside world. He is also questioning whether to be present, be anchored in the past, the future or in self spiritually. His eyes have been illustrated in a style reminiscent of Kachina dolls, leaving room for the viewer to question if his identity is a stereotype or an archetype.

Using origami to illustrate the undertaking, Jay folded dollar bills into baby turtles to portray the SeeTurtles.org effort to release a hatchling into the sea for every dollar it receives.

The Chinese Flag has five stars, star restaurants in China serve Fin soup, sharks are being swapped for stars to assert status. 

Composed from all the quotes handed in by ocean luminaries for the Message in a Bottle Installation.

Composed from all the quotes handed in by ocean luminaries for the Message in a Bottle Installation.

Created as a branding asset for a field initiative by Tsavo Pride

Logo.

Logo

To portray the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji Japan.

Winter sports relies on snowfall, and with each passing year, less powder covers the slopes of various ski resorts. Athletes who pursue snow boarding and skiing have become the greatest allies of the climate change movement, working toward solutions that can have tangible positive impact.

Animal rights have always been an implicit part of my experience and vocabulary as an artist, a woman, and a human being, and this ubiquitous awareness ultimately led to my becoming an activist.