Q & A with Asher Jay, art activist and NatGeo Young Explorer

PARIS — GSS news editor Bethany Ao sat down with Asher Jay, a National Geographic Young Explorer and artist who addressed the COY11 climate change conference in Paris earlier today  (see “@EarthHeiress Asher Jay: ‘Wild Is Who We Come From”).

Ao and Jay talked about the power of art, seeing nature in two- and three-dimensional space, how National Geographic is supporting her vision, and what she hopes the future will be like for young people (caution: it may include some elephant butts).

An edited transcript of their conversation follows.

GSS: How did you get into what you do? How did you connect your interests in biodiversity and art?

Asher: I had initially studied environmental science and biochemistry so I was planning on pursuing a career in that, as a scientific researcher. At the age of 16, I had gotten on the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior boat, and I remember seeing (boats being rammed), thinking it was the end of the world. And Greenpeace going out there and kicking ass. I remember thinking that was amazing and I should be part of that sort of front-line movement to push against this sort of overexploitation of natural resources and the (economic) model that allows for us to privatize profit and to socialize cost.

But life happens, and I wound up pursuing fashion design, branding and marketing. I was modeling, but also working on a lot of creative projects that were fashion-related, and so I just got sucked into it. And after three years in the industry, I began to see design, finally. I internalized the visual vernacular and I could finally see in three-dimensional and two-dimensional space.

When people (tell) me about something as they’re describing it, I’m able to perceive it through my senses and articulate it in my imagination. Once that happens, you get possessed. You can’t unsee design and art. 

When I wound up in New York after the BP oil spill happened (in 2010), I just reacted very adversely to it, very emotionally initially. And because I was so raw about it, I wanted to get involved in it in a way that made sense. I no longer wanted to be on the bench, on the sidelines, looking at this mainstream issue unfolding. And it’s happening because of our consumer choices. Yet, you know, this person I’d imagined when I was young, who would step up and solve all our problems, so by the time I grew up, they wouldn’t be part of my reality anymore, they would just be fixed. It never happened. Someone never manifested.

We’re all waiting for someone to solve the world’s problems and no one is that someone, we’re all that someone. And it dawned on me when the BP oil spill happened, that I’m that someone I’m looking for and I need to step up.

So I went to (Washington) D.C., and within a week, I’d met all the right people and I’d also articulated my concerns through visual artwork and that really resonated with the people I met, all the scientists. Sylvia Earle was there and I remember her saying, “A painting is worth a thousand words, but an artwork like mine (Asher’s) is worth a thousand paintings.” I had something unique to contribute because I was able to articulate hard-hitting issues of our time in very simple, visual two-dimensional designs.

So that became my starting point, and from there on it was like building blocks, trying to figure out, okay, this is my skill set and this is what I love doing — how can I combine them to actually help ecological concerns, social issues and empower the disenfranchised and marginalized?

[Editor’s note: This YouTube video uploaded by Greenpeace Spain shows Greenpeace boats being rammed by the Spanish Navy in November 2014.]

GSS: Why is your artwork important right now?

Asher: It has had a lot of impact with the general public. The problem with the world of art is that it can be rather disengaged with global realities, that it can be kind of an elitist dialogue. So it’s about how the industry is structured and I’m really about using art as a means to an end, and the end being to help people get on the same page and work towards positive solutions of the collective and to enable coexistence.

Terrace Art Splatters featuring works by #DavidFOOX #Penelopefox and #AsherJay @foox_u @pewterpot pic.twitter.com/WUzYLjRS

— Asher Jay (@AsherJayNYC) October 15, 2011

For me, what matters is wildlife being preserved for future generations and always being protected. We should feel that automatic connection to where we come from, and that women need to be empowered for societies to be functional, for men not to just run away with the earnings and just go trade in for bush meat because that’s the easiest revenue source, as opposed to being family-oriented and staying at home and empowering community, kinship. (The) entire model changes when you empower women, when you give girls education and then you go to areas of ecological concern after. Those are the areas I’m passionate about and art comes to me naturally and tying these things together comes naturally.

I always perceive connections and so the art becomes important because people perceive it and they internalize it and feel empowered by it, so much so that the art becomes an extension of who they are and what they stand for, which is not just about me anymore. It’s about the bigger picture and making people feel like they have a voice that can be heard… 

An image really can unite and transcend social boundaries, cultural boundaries (and) government boundaries, so it’s really about looking past those borders and getting people to truly unite towards a common end goal. It has that power.

I always embed emotional triggers in the landscape so people feel like there’s a personal call to power; there’s a movement to galvanize to act as changemakers.

And once you see something, you can’t unsee it. It’s just about getting that moment of “aha!” invoked in them naturally so that they get engaged. It’s not so much as a self-agenda-izing artist that I say that, it’s more about whether it has context in the world and if people really feel like they can connect with it.

Time and again, an image I’ve put out there has gone viral in a single day. One organization shared it without my permission and they had 50k (50,000) likes, so that’s 50k eyes on the issue, and that’s amazing to me. I don’t respect the manner in which it was poached from me. That’s really interesting, as creatives, when your content gets misappropriated by the public, which is so easy to do, on our Instagram feeds and everything just pops up. I’m talking about poaching and you’re poaching my image to talk about poaching. It comes from the same space. This is why poaching happens. Same reason why you’re taking it from me is the same reason why people are taking horns from a rhino.

That’s really interesting, as creatives, when your content gets misappropriated by the public, which is so easy to do, on our Instagram feeds and everything just pops up. I’m talking about poaching and you’re poaching my image to talk about poaching. It comes from the same space.

So the fact that people don’t put these things together and they don’t understand that’s what they’re doing to people who are trying to support a cause, they’re making the people a cause too. This whole underlying landscape — people being documentary filmmakers, being taken for granted, photographers who are going undercover to catch really hard stories, and having these images disseminated in a way that doesn’t preserve the context — doesn’t preserve the integrity of the work. That’s disheartening and really heartbreaking for me. Young people who are creative should be aware of this. You should stand your ground and take possession of your work.

GSS: How do people react to your work? What is that like?

Asher: Time and again, it happens in waves, when I least expect it but I most need it sometimes, when I feel like, “What am I doing? Maybe I should quit. It’s pointless,” and then someone will write me and bring me back to center. That’s the amazing feedback loop you can create when you put your content out in the world. And people do find that it resonates with their internal landscapes, anything from a five-year-old girl who’s like, “I want to grow up to be you,” or a seven- or eight-year-old girl who’s like, “This is what I do with my free time. This is my sketchbook, can you take a look at it and tell me what you think?”

People have said, “I really love your work, I loved your talk,” just having young minds that are impressionable that are being impressed with what you’re trying to put out there. That’s deeply meaningful to me. And also to have adults (respond) … I’ve had responses when people have tattooed my artwork onto them and sent me pictures of that, or they print it out on banners and hang it in front of their house because they stand behind the issue.

That to me, is amazing. I feel it in every cell, I get goosebumps when I think about it. That to me, is why I do what I do. People matter. They feel empowered by it.

GSS: How did you become involved with NatGeo?

Asher: National Geographic happened because two years ago, I gave a talk at a global symposium in Salamanca, Spain. It was called the WILD10 Congress and I was one of two sessions that got a standing ovation. And I didn’t realize it at the time because I came apart during my own talk and started crying, and I cried through most of my talk because I was very emotional about my topic, which is wildlife trafficking and poaching.

I still sometimes come apart onstage. It’s horrible what we do to other living things, and the manner in which we take from them. It’s amazing to me that we can be that apathetic and disregard another living being to that extent, like it’s just so cruel. I can’t internalize it and if I do I start crying about it.

So I start crying onstage and I remember at the end of it, I couldn’t look at my audience because I was so embarrassed, I was looking down. And apparently I got a standing ovation and the entire audience rushed the stage, one of whom was from National Geographic, John Francis. (vice-president of research, conservation and exploration).

He had a chat with me afterward and he said, “You need to come to D.C. and give a talk to all of the National Geographic departments.” And I did that, and some of them came up to me afterwards and said, “We shouldn’t tell you this, but we’re going to make you part of the family!” and I was like, “That sounds kind of like mafia, but kind of cool!” I don’t know what that means. But they basically gave me the Emerging Explorer Award and brought me on.

They’ve been an amazing support structure, and it’s like coming home, where you’ll always belong. You’re in the community that you implicitly connect to. And they get the language you speak in, and why you’re wired the way you are. So all the good, bad and ugly gets within the yellow borders.

And the beautiful thing about the yellow rectangle (is) if I have a vision, it doesn’t cut me off. It’s like, “How can I help enable you? How can I help bolster you?” so I think it’s been critical to my growth as a creative person and in the conservation space to have NatGeo behind me.

GSS: Where do you find inspiration for your art?

Asher: For the most part, I can see things. So right now I’m looking at these teepee huts, and I can see someone walking by in a colored shirt, so like the blue and that neon green over there. And I start drawing connections and I start thinking, “Where else have I seen these colors and that kind of architecture before in my life?” and then I’m thinking about the ways in which things coil around one another and looking at buttresses of trees and old trees and old growth rainforests and then I have a concept.

Creating works to raise funds that will be used to build a life size blue whale float on the West Coast!Save the Whales pic.twitter.com/mcIshqk — Asher Jay (@AsherJayNYC) September 8, 2011

It’s just very quick, associative natural thinking and then being able to bring it together in the simplest way of articulation possible, so I’m like, “How can I distill this into icons and symbols?” I go back and forth between the macro and micro in my head a lot. Each creative person is wired so differently, and their internal landscape is so unique to each creative individual, but like in my case, it’s just like ideas constantly mushrooming all over the place and then I see them all come together. It’s very divergent at first and convergent at the end.

The other thing is when I have experiences, for instance, when I went free diving with whale sharks. Something was so magical about seeing them beneath you, it was like seeing the night sky inverted and a galaxy arising. It’s such a huge creature and all-consuming when you see it, and when its mouth opens, all of it… it’s just the most incredible thing that you can come in contact with, and it’s alive and has its own purpose and it’s leading its life. There is nothing more beautiful and artistic than nature’s expressions to me, and so if I can do any justice to that, if I can capture it in any way, I try to bring it back, because it is magic.

And that’s what I’m trying to evoke in my work — magic.

GSS: Why is COY important, in your opinion?

Asher: I think the youth have a unique understanding of how to use the digital age to their advantage. We don’t exist in social group in a traditional sense; we basically are transnational. We connect on a daily basis to discuss what’s going on around us.

Some of those conversations are meaningful and some of them are like, “Who drank more beers last night?” But when youth are galvanizing around things like COY11, it is around things that matter.

The reason why I want to contribute to it is because it is a privilege to be part of this movement, and when you see your fellow supporters showing nothing but resilience in the wake of one disaster after another, which we stand to inherit now. The decisions we make now affect our future so we need to be part of that right now. The fact that we have now woken up to that truth, to me, that is worth being a part of. Also that and we are able to use digital media to get people together, to make them care about things, to get them to sign petitions and be a part of policy change in such effective ways, and we’re such good storytellers that that’s another reason why I feel like they get me implicitly and the work I do is that media.

GSS: What are you going to do next?

Asher: Every time someone asks me for a five-year plan, I’m like, “I have a right now plan.” And if right now works, the five years will work out. And it’s true.

Because we’re in a state of crisis constantly, I’m constantly responding to the next emergency happening in my life. It could be orangutans burning down right now in Indonesia and someone calls me about that at 2 in the morning, when I’m in a different time zone, and I’m like, “I don’t even know what’s happening anymore.” But that’s the way the world works. People need to reach out to you and you need to be available for life and life happens now.

So, five years from now, life is still going to be part of it and we should fight right now to preserve it, and that’s what I’m doing, with every waking minute of my life. A lot of the projects I’m currently involved in are either translating from things I’ve been working on for the last two to three years, I’m just building on it. Just putting one brick on top of another. A lot of creative projects are time-consuming and you just have to keep having conversations, and eventually something meaningful comes out of it.

GSS: Out of all the art that you’ve created, what’s your favorite piece?

Asher: I connect with all of my artwork on different levels. I always enjoy the process of creating them. Right now, I’m really enjoying my continuation of my project for Faberge. I’m getting people to shoot a photo of one eye open, one eye closed, and what they’re looking at, like “Eye of the Storm.” It’s like real-time storytelling and that’s what I’m building on right now.

I think it’s so meaningful to me because I love stories, and I think different eyes really do see the world differently. The kinds of  stories the public has submitted is just mindblowing. They’re so creative and there’s so much that I learn from it too, that I love collaborations like this, where you just galvanize a large group of people towards a common creative angle.

GSS: What’s your funniest story about nature and the environment?

Asher: Last summer I was in a tent in Africa, it was like a camp house. The camp director didn’t have anything but “Paranormal Activity” and “Saw” for us to watch, so every Friday, which was movie night, we’d go and watch all these horrible, awful scary movies.

So I saw “Paranormal Activity” that night and I was super freaked out, because I do believe that ghosts are going to come out of my TV and get me. I’m pretty chicken about these things. I’m in my room freaking out and I hear all of this rustling noise outside and I think, “Oh my gosh, the devil is coming to get me!” My friend, who is a lion researcher, is hanging with me and he’s like, “I’m pretty sure it’s a wild animal.” But I’m like, “Nope, pretty sure that’s the devil.”

I went to open my flap on the window and it was all gray, and I couldn’t see anything! And I was like, “Something super paranormal is happening right now.” I couldn’t see anything outside! Even in the darkest night, you can still see some of the moonlight. We were freaking out!

But then he opens the door, and it’s a giant elephant butt right there, up against the window, which is why we couldn’t see anything. We closed it before he farted but that was just hysterical, how close we were to wildlife. An elephant was blocking our entire line of vision.

That’s amazing to me, how close they’ll come up to us, how much they trust us. To think that we could betray that trust through poaching and killing them for anything, it’s heartbreaking for me. That’s why I want to help. I want other kids to be able to go to Africa and be like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t see anything because there’s a giant elephant butt in the way.”