enCAPsulating coral
The two dominant themes in my piece were awareness and reuse. For my goal of awareness, I wanted to focus on making students really think about the ocean or coral reefs. As a student is sitting at pub, casually drinking his or her beer from a glass bottle at pub, they might stop and think about where their bottle and cap will end up post consumption. In reality, it will end up in an exotic and seemingly otherworldly ecosystem that is rarely part of a college student's daily life. The aim is to help students realize that their lives are connected to these seemingly separate ocean habitats. The second theme I wanted to draw upon in my piece was reuse of “trash” in innovative ways. In our lives we generate a significant amount of waste with an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. In fact, I highly encourage students to spend a day carrying all of their waste around with them, just to see how much they generate. In an art class focused on the environment, the last thing I wanted to do was generate more waste through creating a piece. Seeing bottle caps repurposed in a unique way would perhaps spark viewers to think about ways to reutilize their own trash.
Neha Goel
Neha Goel was born in New York City in 1996 and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. She is currently working towards her Bachelor of Science
in Civil Engineering at Rice University. In high school, Neha took a number of sculpture and photography classes which sparked her interest in art. Neha’s interest in environmental issues and coral reefs also came from her coursework in civil engineering as well as her marine biology and environmental science classes in high school. Although she hasn't taken any art classes at Rice University, she is excited to get a chance to work on an art project through this class!
ARTIST BIO
