Round 6 of 8: February
Azsa West.
Creative Director ON NIKE, WIEDEN+KENNEDY SHANGHAI
Azsa West comes from a haunted little surfer town in Southern California. She was raised by dolphins, skateboarders, aliens and a new age graphic designer.
Azsa is a Creative Director by day at Wieden + Kennedy with a multidisciplinary background in art direction, writing, design, illustration and film.
She studied photography and illustration at the California College of Arts in San Francisco and graduated from W+K 12 with an emphasis on art direction, writing, and the dark arts.
She has exhibited works in Los Angeles, Portland, New York, Brazil and Paris. A book of her drawings “Nature Study on Lonesome Island” was published in 2011. Azsa’s work has been featured in publications such as New York Times, Ad Busters, CMYK, Fader, and Fast Company.
In her free time she cooks, makes art and is writing a dark comedy inspired by her fucked up childhood.
BRIEF: PLEASE MAKE SMOG GO AWAY
“Smog is evil and needs to be stopped.
”
In China, pollution has been rising to an apocalyptic level.
It’s the cause of many problems. Big and Small.
Every day, another houseplant dies, a person collapses, and the great outdoors get less and less great. The air is so bad here in the wintertime, that going outside for some is not really an option. Particularly small children. Masks are worn. Air purifiers are purchased. And childhood is spent indoors.
Winter is also rough for many reasons. Especially in rural China.
It’s cold. Really fucking cold. Nobody like’s being cold in the winter. So what do they do? They heat their homes. Heat the factories. All over China. China is Big. China has a lot of people. And most of these people in rural areas are burning coal to get warm. Coal is cheap and provides warmth on a budget. However coal is a leading cause of air pollution in China. And in winter time it’s even more life threatening.
The brief is simple.
Please make smog go away.
It sucks.
Nobody likes it.
Make it go away in whatever way you see fit.
It can be in the form of a song, a new product, an art installation, an emotional film- or some super- cool- new- innovative technology.
Thank you. Godspeed!
References:
http://www.techinsider.io/china-smog-pollution-coal-burning-toxic-red-alert-2015-12
http://fortune.com/2015/12/01/chinas-toxic-smog/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/world/asia/china-plans-to-upgrade-coal-plants.html?_r=0
Deadline: 11:59pm, Feb 29th 2016 (Pacific Daylight Time)