At Graffiti Collective, we’re completely inspired by nature, NYC and the arts! So in honor of Earth Month, we wanted to share the amazing (pre-quarantine!) experience we had at Arcadia Earth, an immersive art pop-up in NYC that inspires environmental activism.  

THE SPACE

Located in NOHO, NYC, it's 15 rooms feature installations by environmentally- conscious artists & are made entirely of upcycled materials. Each dreamy installation gives solutions for reducing and reversing your impact on the planet. Between the floating junk-made jellyfish, cardboard land & seascapes, and mossy tunnels, you’ll find AR and VR features, facts on climate change, and empowering ideas to help!

As soon as you enter, it’s an immersive experience that completely surrounds you!

Some of our favorite installations were: 

 The OCEAN LIFE installations

These take you through marine life and how it is affected by our litter, single-use plastic, incorrect recycling, and more! You can even use a pair of VR goggles to “take a dive” into the ocean & hang with some sea creatures. The under-water experience is captivating & offers information on how to protect the sea. It also showcases products that are reef-safe, like Guppy Friend, and gives tips to make sure you’re recycling & upcycling properly! 

The SHOP RESPONSIBLY installations

These installations teach you all about shopping consciously - from brands that use purely recycled fabrics to companies like Tencel that are engineering biodegradable fabrics & 3-D printing clothes. This section of Arcadia Earth educates you on sustainable fashion, what fast fashion is doing to the planet, and red-flags you can check for while shopping! As a shopping addict, I really resonated with this installation - it made me think about my shopping habits & what I could do to help the planet (which is especially important with my online shopping coming to an all time high during quarantine!)  

The CO2 CYCLE installations

This immersive installation is all about the creation of oxygen, and how it is created by organisms in the ocean! You follow oxygen from its creation, to the creation of the ozone layer that allows for life on Earth. You get to interact with terrariums and experience ecosystems with AR & VR - even the walls are completely covered with live moss & plants.

The exhibit also showcases what more CO2 from mass production does to nature (plant life is negatively affected & nature decays) - and offers solutions to help decrease the amount of CO2 society is outputting (hello, Game Changers & meatless Mondays!)

The PLASTIC JUNGLE installations

This installation is made of about 44,000 salvaged plastic bags (the amount used in New York every single minute). It really shows you the impact of single use plastic and packaging. It also offers easy solutions like fun, reusable totes & swap-outs you can make for your single-use plastic items, like Stasher bags, U-konserve reusable straws & Baggu produce bags. PS: The enormity of how many plastic bags we use is really captured in this room, so huge shoutout to NYC’s plastic bag ban! 

WHY WE 🖤ARCADIA EARTH

One of our favorite things about the Arcadia Earth experience is that it takes climate change and makes it a little less scary. You leave feeling empowered - like you’ve learned the facts & discovered some of the steps (even small ones) you can take right away to make a change. It also shows you how easy it is to make a difference. Something as simple as cutting meat from your diet for a day every week or using affordable Stasher Bags makes a difference. It completely crushes the notion that you have to change your whole lifestyle or spend a ton of money to truly help.

The entire exhibition ends with the “vow room” where you can make a personal commitment to a small lifestyle change that can lead to a huge impact! From saying no to single-use plastic, to eating less meat, to shopping ethically, you can pledge to take action. You can even start now from your home! Feeling inspired already? DM or email us your vow to share!

Overall, the whole Arcadia Earth experience was an amazing way to see the effects of modern life on the environment and gave me some great ideas to make easy changes! From introducing me to game-changing brands to visually showing me how shopping ethically impacts the CO2 cycle, I’ve walked away with easy & impactful ideas to incorporate into my everyday life that will help correct climate change.   

Post-quarantine, make sure to check out Arcadia Earth at 718 Broadway in New York City!