Emily Steinberg
– artist, writer, and educator
The Reckoning, is a 22 page full color visual narrative, that illustrates our planet’s stark environmental crisis on a visceral gut level in words and images. It explores how our sustained misuse of natural resources is intertwined and connected, on micro and macro levels, impacting everything from climate change to how the Covid 19 Virus was transmitted from animals to humans. It imagines how we can do better.
When Covid hit, the world shut down and I decided to pursue my project by reading as much as I could to get a better understanding of where we are in terms of resource consumption, conservation, animal welfare, recycling and waste disposal.
It’s not a pretty picture.
We are at a precipice. It was difficult to research and create this story, because the reality is dark and heavy.
Every single choice we make affects the planet environmentally and ethically.
It’s time for introspection and a true self-awareness of how our actions and their consequences
affect the world around us.
The Reckoning was created in response to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Responsible Consumption and Production, and based on research from over 40 sources.
Emily Steinberg is a multidisciplinary American artist, focusing on painting and visual narrative, whose work has been shown across the United States and Europe. Most recently, her first cartoon was published by The New Yorker/Daily Shouts. She is currently the Artist in Residence at Drexel College of Medicine in Philadelphia. Her visual narratives have been regularly published in Cleaver Magazine since 2013 and since Summer 2019 she has taken on the role of Visual Narrative Editor at Cleaver. She is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Penn State University, Abington College, where she has been teaching since 2011. Steinberg earned her M.F.A. and B.F.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She lives and works just outside Philadelphia.