Act4Amazon Instagram filter!!!
Act4Amazon Instagram filter is a work by Brazilian visual artist Vanessa Rosa and Indian tech artist Harshit Agrawal. It is linked to their Instagram account @Amazonia.4.Life .
The filter portrays amazonian plants, such as the beautiful Victoria Regia flower and the Samaúma gigantic tree, in the form of looping animations, to be applied over people’s faces or over the landscape.
The objective of such work is to engage everyone into the defence of the Amazon. To save our environment, all of us have to work together. We need to be capable of real dialogue, for the climate crisis and deforestation is no obvious simple subject. The filter allows us to merge with nature, or to apply a growing tree over our surroundings. It’s about making plants grow, a message of hope, but also of action.
The collaboration that made this artwork possible is also key. If Brazil is home to most of the Amazon and is the nation that should be protecting it better, India is a large consumer of Amazonian gold, therefore its citizens are also responsible for the recent rise of illegal gold mining in the tropical forest.
Deforestation happens due to world wide causes, countries need to work together to come up with solutions for the climate crisis. General awareness on the importance of the matter must be spread and the Brazilian government needs to take responsibility over protecting the forest. However, most of all, the local communities who do the ground work against deforestation, such as the indigenous communities, should receive as much support and representation as possible.
Both Vanessa and Harshit have spent time in the Amazon during art residencies and their research is oriented towards combining traditional knowledge systems with new technologies, from geometrical patterns to digital fabrication and machine learning innovation. Their work is an invitation for people to collaborate and put their faces and surroundings as part of the cause as well.
Instagram filters have become widely popular, and social media has emerged as a platform of expression for many social movements in the last few years, bringing about change through active and personalised engagement. We aim to bring about a similar involvement through our filter.
Let’s save the Amazon together.
Let’s save the environment together.
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How to Use the Filter
Follow the account @amazonia.4.life on instagram. Once you do that, this filter will be available on your instagram stories. Else, click on this link- (https://www.instagram.com/a/r/?effect_id=673553839791610). This should open up your instagram app to the stories mode with the Amazon4Life filter on.
The front facing camera looks for a face and shows animations of the Amazonian flower Victoria Regia and leaves growing on the face. You can flip the camera and see the gorgeous Samaúma tree grow at the center of the screen too. Place this tree creatively wherever you want to. Take pictures of the face or the tree (or both!) and share it with the hashtag #Amazonia4Life to grow this movement and show your support for the beautiful life forms of the Amazon. Tap anywhere on the screen to see a list of organizations working hard to protect Amazonia. We are listing these organizations below too for reference (this is by no means an exhaustive list). Please try and support them or any other organization you think is working for this cause :)
There are many other important ones that we did not add in the filter screen, but we added their links bellow as well.
Please share with friends and family. We all need to come together to protect the Amazon! To share the filter- please send this link- () to friends.
Links to the organisations we mention:
ISA — Instituto Socioambiental
More organizations:
