My piece Inescapable is a response to the growing crisis of plastic pollution, highlighting its overwhelming and pervasive presence in every corner of the planet. It is inspired by Carl Beam’s North American Iceberg and uses a similar style in the use of text, a spray-paint-like background, and visuals of media about the issue. The background images of a dead fish, human brain, plastic bottle, and a bird entangled in plastic are commentary on the destructive impact of plastics evident throughout the global environment. The written text represents the scientific knowledge and research of the growing dangers of reliance on plastic. The focus of the piece is a figure vomiting up plastic. This represents the overwhelming reality that plastic continues to be scattered throughout the planet, and there is no place safe from it, not even in our own bodies.

–Adelle McDougall (Grade 11, Cawthra Park Secondary School, Mississauga, Ontario)

Contemporary Ojibwe artist Carl Beam (1943–2005) was dedicated to raising national awareness about the effects of colonialism in Canada, often through mixed media works that confronted injustices and highlighted the resilience of Indigenous Peoples.