GOA / MUMBAI, INDIA
Annual Human Weight vs. Anthropogenic Mass
'In 2020 [1], experts believe that the human-built environment’s collective weight exceeded that of our planet’s total biomass. This estimate indicates that everything humans have created, maintained, or discarded is heavier than Earth’s natural habitat and creatures combined [2].
​
Given all the space and infrastructure we need every day, such as homes, offices, schools, farms, hospitals, transportation, roads, manufacturing, entertainment, power generation, trash disposal, and so forth, humans have tipped the scales. This has potentially ushered in Anthropocene [3], a geological epoch defined by the human impact on our planet.'
​
Commissioned by Social Political Research Foundation. Read the full essay here.
©AlishaVasudev2021
Process
'Taking the perimeter of the human-made objects in the photograph, this cartography-inspired illustration depicts how each contribution to the built environment is 52 times our weight annually. It uses contours to depict our contributions to anthropogenic mass every four weeks relative to our body mass per annum.'