ALI ANDREWS

In my final month of college, I wanted to use the skills and knowledge I gained across my previous 3.9 years at Middlebury to convey some of the environmental messages near to my heart. I wanted other students at Middlebury to benefit from the Physics and Environmental Studies education I had received that informed my motivation to limit my personal energy use and work towards climate change mitigation and adaptation. For me, an understanding of how an engine works - the definitive and irreversible transformation of fuel to kinetic energy - had a visceral effect on how I thought about and consumed energy. When I learned about combustion engines in high school I immediately changed the way I drove in order to conserve more fuel - I accelerated more slowly, coasted more often, refused to turn on the A/C (much to my sister's chagrin), and eventually stopped driving entirely in favor of a bicycle. I did not necessarily expect such a reaction from my peers at Middlebury, but I hoped that enhanced, tangible understanding would bring enhanced sensitivity, in the same way that watching the documentary Food, Inc. makes you think twice about ordering steak.

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I applied for and was granted a small fund from the Environmental Studies Department to cover studio costs and so I began sketching. I began with a hand-drawn 4-cyclinder engine diagram, based on a Ford tractor, which I annotated with the operations of the engine.  I made three series: one about entropy, one about environmental degradation that results from consumption, and one about the juxtaposition of 'natural' and 'unnatural' in energy.

 

I applied for and was granted wall space in the student center on campus to hang my prints. These prints hung for the next semester with accompanying text for students to absorb. Additionally, a professor from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey asked for one to be hung in the lobby of one of the academic buildings, where it still hangs today.