An Artist's Role in Global Climate Change with Benjamin Von Wong

In this episode, Cory Connors speaks with environmental artist Benjamin Von Wong, known for large-scale installations that elevate global conversations around plastic pollution, climate change, and overconsumption. Ben shares his unusual path from mining engineering to purpose-driven art and discusses how creative storytelling can bring attention, urgency, and emotional connection to complex environmental issues. He reflects on his United Nations installation The Thinker’s Burden, his involvement in Extended Producer Responsibility initiatives, and his recent collaboration with the World Economic Forum and Atlantic Packaging.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Ben’s transition from mining engineer to environmental artist
• Creating The Thinker’s Burden at the United Nations
• How art influences climate and plastics treaty discussions
• Overconsumption, reuse, and systemic change
• EPR visualization at See Change 2025
• GAEA Awards collaboration with the World Economic Forum
• Sustainable packaging partnership with Atlantic Packaging
• Upcoming climate-focused installations at future COPs

Resources Mentioned:

• Ocean Plastic Leadership Network
• Global Plastics Treaty
• See Change
• World Economic Forum – GAEA Awards
• Cruz Foam sustainable foam
• Atlantic Packaging & A New Earth Project

Contact:

Connect with Benjamin Von Wong:
Website: vonwong.com
Instagram
LinkedIn

Closing Thoughts:

Cory and Benjamin reflect on how creativity, storytelling, and collaboration can help shift the global sustainability conversation in meaningful ways, highlighting the unique role each person plays in influencing change. Ben emphasizes that art may not directly alter policy, but it can move people emotionally and create shared understanding—often the first step toward action. Together, they discuss the importance of hope, innovation, and cross‑sector partnerships in addressing complex environmental challenges, encouraging listeners to recognize their own ability to contribute to a more sustainable and resilient future.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Sustainable Packaging Podcast with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. In today's episode, I connected with environmental artist and activist, Benjamin Van Wong. His work has been impacting the global sustainability conversation for over 14 years. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did. I'd also like to thank our sponsors, 3M, SpecRight, and Lorax EPI. We couldn't do the show without them. Welcome to the Sustainable Packaging Podcast. I'm so excited today to have Mr. Benjamin Von Wong, an artist in this space who has done incredible things, including ⁓ installations at worldwide events about sustainability. But welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. I'm honored you've been an environmental artist, an activist and speaker for over 14 years. Tell us how you got inspired to get into this kind of genre of artwork. Yeah. So my background is actually not in art. I studied hard rock mining engineering. So I worked three and a half years doing that. So diametrically opposed to what you might consider as an environmentalist. And picked up a camera and became an early day influencer. Like no impact, just fantasy, like tying people underwater, dangling them off rooftops, lighting them on fire. That was like how my early day works. I was really engaged in fantasy and you do these stunts to attract attention because that's really the best way to survive as an artist. Of course. And over time, as I became kind of a, I wouldn't say like a A-list successful kind of creative, but think of a solidly B-list celebrity, I suppose, in doing my kind of art, it eventually got kind of boring. Like at some point when you have, like, it felt like things were working. I was creating work, I was getting views, I was starting to get a lot of sponsorship deals, I was starting to get clients. I think it just started to feel a little redundant, because I was like, I'm doing these projects and getting a lot of views and getting a lot of comments so that I can get the next project, but like, what is it all for? the act of creating alone was not motivating enough. And somewhere in 2015, 2016, I just said, like, you know what? I'm going to take a break from trying to create these crazy fantastical things. And I just want my work to mean something, anything. it was like this weird moment in time where I was like, I don't know what I care about. I don't have a cause that is my cause, but I know I want to do something. And so I just started watching documentaries. started trying to figure out how, where are the opportunities to intersect fantasy and impact? Hmm. And somehow the projects that were environmental themed were the ones that started sticking the most. And so when I first started these, they were more just like, climate change is a thing or we need to protect the oceans. But it was kind of broad. But I think the more you learn about these issues, the more you dive deeper into them, you kind of get sucked up into it. And so I like to say, like lot of my earlier days, I was a very, very reluctant environmentalist because Um, it's, really inconvenient. Like you just feel guilty all the time. Nothing you do is quite right. Actually, like you're invited to do less and less things. And, and it took quite a while for me as I was starting to get into this world to, to, to figure out like the balance of, um, what, I don't know, like what to, to, change. Like, do you change everything all at once or do you start small? And when you, is it about individual action or is it about the system as a whole? And, and just kind of like dive into the, the nuances and complexity of all of Hmm. But that's the inception of it all. I tripped and fell into this life as both an artist and an environmentalist. That's an amazing background. had no idea you were engineering first and then, well, it makes sense, right? Because the creations that you make are incredibly highly engineered and ⁓ very intricate and fantastic. But like your most recent or one of your most recent projects was incredible. Six meter tall and placed right outside the United Nations. Yeah, there it is. The Thinker. Yeah Thank you. Yeah. ⁓ I love the thinker's burden. How did you get approval for that? How did you get encouragement even for the project and funding? All the things. The thinker's burden, yeah. Yeah, so for those of you who don't know, I mean, so I basically have recently focused on creating work at large scale multilateral treaty negotiations at the United Nations. And it's not because I'm really invited to create this, it's more just that I know these are happening, I know they matter, and so I have to cold email my way to find the right person to get permission to create the thing and leverage any kind of relationship between. corporations, ⁓ public institutions, United Nations, just trying to figure out like who's the right person to talk to you because just because you've done it once doesn't mean you get to do it again because every project is in W different city, a different country, it's different collaboration, different subset of policies and interests and so I don't always get to do the art. But once in a while I get lucky and this last piece that I created a six meter tall sculptural remix of Rodin's The Thinker. It's a crushed plastic bottle in one hand. baby and the other sitting on top of Mother Earth. And each and every single day that went by in the treaty negotiations, we just drowned the art installation in more and more plastics until the whole Mother Earth was drowning. The thinker was kind of covered in plastics. And it was just so symbolic of how, by the end of the treaty negotiations, how humanity was unable to respond despite the evidence right in front of us that there is a problem. We need to address this, and it's urgent. Mm-hmm. And so for those of you who don't know, the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations did not go through. Actually, the chair ended up stepping down a month later. And so right now, INC 5.3 is only going to be a one-day event in Geneva. And I think they're just trying to reorient and figure, well, what do we do? How do we move this process forward if just a handful of countries can slow the entire process down or veto things? What does multilateralism actually look like? And how do we update it so that it fits more with the times? So I think this is an ongoing challenge. ⁓ But me as an artist, I think I really just try to find ways of contributing in the one way that I know how. And, you know, in this piece, I know we're in a packaging podcast, in this piece, we did focus on a lot of like single use plastic stuff, but I also wanted to focus on other things. We had tires, we had building materials, we had fishing nets, because it was really important to me that we understand that it's about much more than just... Yes. Hahaha one little piece of the problem, like plastics isn't everything from the clothing that we wear to the toys that our children play with and so on and so forth. And so it's a far bigger problem than just like one thing. And I know that like packaging and single-use plastics get a lot of the flak and they are a lot of the volume of the problem, but it is also still one piece of the puzzle. That's an excellent point. Yeah. Plastic and packaging is often the villain. But like you said, fishing nets are a huge part of waste in the environment and tires and, building construction materials and all of these things are, are waste that often end up in landfills or the environment in a way that needs to be dealt with and handled. So great point. I, I'd love to talk to you about the thinker's burden a little bit more, your art installation. ⁓ how do you feel like it was received at the United Nations event? And do you think it had any impact? know it was globally recognized and, ⁓ on media, got tons of media attention all over the place. You've got hundreds of thousands of followers and, and, know, all of these things, but I'd love to know your thoughts on. Yeah, you know, measuring the impact of art is really hard. And so I think that there was a point in my life where I really wanted my work to be the inflection point for something to happen. And I think as I've gotten older, I think I've realized that like, even when something happens that maybe is a tipping point for something else to happen, it's like there are people that are so many people from so many walks of life that are all working on this problem and like, Hmm. one for one person to come in and claim credit and said I was the one who did this just because I was one who signed the paper got the thing over it's actually kind of like very egocentric. And so the way I kind of think about it more is like what is the role that I want to play in this ecosystem of change? There are a lot of different players and like my role is to maybe introduce the the one thing that hopefully everyone can agree upon so it doesn't matter if you're from civil society or or in a fossil fuel producing country You we, I think we should all be able to agree that this growing plastic problem is harming both our environment and the health of not just this generation, but all future generations. And so I wanted to bring the conversation back to something that we could all agree upon. And, and I think from there, and one of the reasons why I think my art gets a lot of visibility is because it doesn't point the finger necessarily at who is responsible or what needs to happen next. It really tries to highlight what is the universal truth and maybe in my case, I obviously have an opinion so I'm trying to ⁓ center the science that is focusing on human health and well-being because I think that's the core reason why everyone is there is because we don't want to live on a planet that is killing us and we don't want to create products that are harmful to us ⁓ and it's not maybe just the end product but also the extraction process, the chemicals that are used. Mm-hmm. Right? it, it's how it breaks down in the environment, how it enters our bodies, and while there's, you know, the skeptics might say that the science is still not quite clear whether, like, the impacts of microplastics in our body actually is, because there's too many factors, I'm like, I think we can all probably guess that microplastics in our body is probably not a good thing, right? And so, you know, applying the precautionary principle into this seems to be helpful. And so, True. To really answer your question though, mean, at the end of the day, this piece, because it's placed at the right place, at the right time, in front of the right people, I think ends up being a common thing that we can all recognize. So one, think it helps mark the passage of time. So instead of using just stock images or otherwise, it becomes like a defining, like, this was the theme of this conference. It helps us center a conversation. So I think in some ways, I'm trying to nudge the conversation towards human health and well-being. Hmm. And because it gets so widely utilized by basically anyone, whether they're a government official, a nonprofit, a for-profit, like think Unilever used my images, people go and they stand in front of the art and they take a photo talking about why they're there. And so, it empowers everyone because to create change, we need to move the center. We can't just have... Hmm. You know, I think everyone has a role to play. have like the green pieces that are calling for like urgent, radical, immediate attention. then WWF, for example, might be like in the middle with the businesses and then you might have the fossil fuel countries, but like that whole spectrum needs to shift together. You can't just have one group keep pulling on one side and the other just refusing to move their ground. We need to move everyone. And the art that I create like hopes to bring some level of cohesion. Hmm. If my art wasn't there, would the negotiations still have happened? Yes. Would we have been ended up at the same place? Probably. Like, I don't think my art actually changes anything in that way, but I do think it helps to move people, helps to shift something in them. And at the end of the day, like, we all just do our part. Like, I'm an artist, so I try to bring art into the picture. You know, you're a storyteller, storytelling through your podcast, and everyone who's listening to this is all one tiny piece of the puzzle. And I think we do ourselves a disservice. Yeah to think like, ⁓ I'm the one that's going to make all the difference alone. We're all just part of an entire ecosystem of players. Right. I love that. think that's really important and valuable points, but I do think your art has made an impact in many ways. I saw it and I think it impacted me. So I can tell you that. And I saw your interviews with people out front of the UN. You had some very high caliber people there that you were talking to. I loved how you said, here's why I did it. And Yeah. Cool. Here's some ideas that I have for ⁓ improvement. And you talked about reusable packaging, and refill ⁓ in some of your interviews. Do you want to speak to that a little bit? Mm. Yeah. Yeah, I think very, I mean, it sort of depends, right? Like when everyone agrees on what the plastic, that plastics flowing in the ocean is a problem, okay, and then when you start going up a little bit, some people think recycling is okay. Some people are like, actually recycling rates are too low. And then some people might go even deeper and say, well, actually, the recycling process itself is toxic or the products break down even further. So maybe that doesn't work and recycling doesn't. So it really kind of depends on what I think is. cool about art is that it gets to engage people at every level of that chain. And for me, as a little bit of a nerd, think that having been in this space for a while, I think a lot about how ⁓ the real culprit is our culture of over consumption and this disposable culture. It doesn't really even matter if your packaging is more sustainable. think many Hmm. paper and cardboard products, as you probably know, actually have a significantly higher carbon footprint. That material still needs to come from somewhere. And when we say one material is better than the other, it really depends on what parameters we're looking under. What are we using to define, determine better or worse? And so when we think about Hmm. I guess we were taking it like a life cycle analysis approach when we're so we're looking at like the carbon footprint of the product, but we're also looking at like where does the end of life what does the end of life look like? What are its chances of entering the environment? I think, you know, refillable solutions generally tend to be really ideal but but then there's also the reality that that does not work for every single product and service right? ⁓ I think I think a lot about like how Sure. many supermarkets across the world banned plastic bags and then they just force everyone to buy like a tote bag that has, you know, uses, I don't know, 100x more material. then they sometimes like, but then users sometimes just treat that as like the disposable bag. So have you really like solved the problem? Because now every single person has like a thousand little plastic tote bags instead of their, inside of their rooms. Mm-hmm. Right. You And yet there are countries in the world where it's made a huge difference in terms of how many plastic bags are floating in the wind, spaces that have poorer waste management systems and so forth. And so I think we have to kind of always contextualize the problem we're trying to solve and the current technologies that are available to us. So I'm pretty pragmatic. do think that it would be really great. to figure out a way of switching everything into refillable, reusable, hyperlocal, all the buzzwords that you might hear. And yet we're still so far away from that. The system is just not designed for that. So what are the steps along the way? How do we get closer? And I think that's part of the work that you guys do at Atlantic is figuring out, OK, cool. We know what perfect looks like, but we're not ready for it. The world just can't do it. So what are the steps to get a little bit closer? haha think that's it. We focus at a New Earth project and Atlantic packaging on things that are viable, things that are real and things that are an actual improvement or a reduction in material used, but will still perform. And I think that's, like you said, that's so valuable to realize. Banning plastic bags at a grocery store is an interesting concept, but those plastic bags were often reused as trash can liners. And so when they banned those, sales of trash can liners spiked by like 400%. So these kinds of things, didn't really think through like, wait, so a lot of people reuse these and ⁓ we'll take their lunches and to work and school in those bags. But you're right. There's so many things we can look at and so many ways that we can address these issues of reduction and improvement in sustainability and packaging. want to talk about, yep, yeah, go ahead. Hmm. Yeah. mean, one of my, of my, ⁓ yeah, sorry. It's just real, real quick, like to, you know, beyond like the refill and reuse thing, like one of the reasons that, I, so one of my earlier projects, how I got into this was creating a giant four story tall skull sculpture of, ⁓ a plastic faucet spewing plastics all over the environment. And that was specifically around. Yeah. Thank you. it's specifically around this, this idea that we need to turn off the plastic tap and. Yes, that's an awesome piece. Yeah. Specifically, this, you know, one of the reasons why I champion this as a concept and idea is that I think like humans are ingenious, If only given the right incentives. Yes, it takes time. But I do think that if we started capping plastic production at the source and we started giving all these market signals to companies and countries that we are going to need to shifts our strategies away from plastics and fossil fuels and things that are damaging to the environment in the long term, that human ingenuity will find a way to think of other ways and other solutions. It just lacks the necessary incentive structure to accelerate that. I think this is one of the modalities that think are, that become more interesting when you start looking at the entire system. rather than just looking at a single product that you want to vilify inside that system itself. Well said. That's it. You can't just say this is bad and here's, know, man, we should stop it. You have to say, here's how we replace it. And I think that's, that's the goal and the mission of Atlantic packaging and a new earth project. I did want to talk about sea change, uh, 2025. What an amazing event. That's where I met you, uh, met you with Dave Ford and the ocean plastics network. Um, how did that experience go in Vermont? What did you think? Uh, you're, made some really cool. Okay. artwork. Let's talk about that. Yeah, mean, Dave Ford from the Ocean Plastic Leadership Network is one of the, I guess, most impactful humans in my life. that, you know, it was sort of his intervention that led me to create my first installation at the UN that then catalyzed all these other opportunities for collaboration with other people. And so I think without Dave Ford in my life, everything would look radically different. And so when Dave says, I'm really excited about something, you should come, Ben. I don't know how you fit in. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's sign me up for it. And so. Hmm. Ha Yeah You know the sea change conference ended up being my role. guess was really trying to map funding flows for extended producer responsibility Bills that were being passed across different states and to actually like observe how they were different from one another In order to help legislators who were considering proposing extended producer responsibility bills in their states could actually like start thinking because thinking about what they were doing and where the pros and the cons were. And so was like a super nerdy thing in a field that I don't have specific expertise in. But Dave came to me and was just like, Ben, we have this complex thing. It's really weird. How might you create some kind of an experience or visualization that could be interesting for our legislators? have an hour. And I'm like, well, it's not. I don't know. don't know. The idea we ended up coming up with was just taking all the existing states that had passed EPR legislations, mapping out where the money goes, because ultimately money is what decides so much, and create a map for folks to actually look at, comment on, criticize, compare. And I think it was pretty successful. I personally was most excited by, I think it was Holly from Tennessee. they're trying to pass like a Ways to Jobs Act in like the first red state. And I'm like, ⁓ that seems really interesting. Because if like so far, it's like all just democratic states that have passed extended producer responsibility laws. But if you start framing this as a nonpartisan issue as something that is, know, like who wants an overflowing landfill in their neighborhood in their communities, which are most often rural red counties and neighborhoods, like, why not like start thinking about yeah. better waste management systems which are both profitable and better for the environment. This is a problem that's not going anywhere, at least not anytime soon, either at the federal level or at the global level. So it comes down to the cities and the counties, the smaller states that can get these programs up and running. And with a full understanding that they're not perfect, but they're definitely better than what we currently have. Right. Senator Heidi Campbell from that. Yeah, yeah, she she's amazing. And she's she's been on this podcast to that episode comes out next week. I'm so so thrilled that. Yeah. So she or I should say it came out because people that are listening to this will will will be will be in the future. But ⁓ no, she's incredible. And her program is amazing. And what she's the effort she's making, that's really cool to watch. Heidi. man. Mm-hmm. But your art, you basically had these big wood cutouts in the shape of each state that has an EPR law that's been passed. And then you took different colors of strings and you mapped out on the states. Is that right? Can you walk us through how that process worked on your art? Mm-hmm. Yeah, we just tried to have different string colors to map different ⁓ funding flows, whether it was from like a municipality or it was from a PRO, et cetera. And the idea was just so that people could hopefully start easily seeing where the money was flowing and how complex those financial flows look like between states. I don't think it was so much about trying to highlight what was better or worse because that may not. actually be that easy to see, but it was like a really interesting starting point for deeper discussion. You know, when we were trying to map this, were hopefully, like, I think I wanted to say like, this is better and this is worse. And the feedback was ultimately that it's really just a whole set of trade-offs. Like nothing is right, nothing is wrong. You just, it depends. And I'm like, okay, this is really complicated. Right. Yeah. my gosh. That's the, that's the answer in packaging. So many times people will say, what's the most sustainable and you'll say, well, that depends. What are the, what's the project? What are we doing? What are we shipping and why? So great points. Really interesting. Before we started, we were talking about ⁓ a partnership ⁓ or at least a collaboration we did with the new earth project and you with the world economic forum. Yeah. Can you tell us about those awards and how you're working with Atlantic Packaging and the New Earth Project? Yeah, for sure. So I don't do these very often, but once in a while I get the opportunity to have a small commission to create a small art project. And in this case, I was invited by this subsidiary of the World Economic Forum called the GAIA Awards, GAIA standing for Giving to Amplify Earth Action, so G-A-E-A. And they're going to be giving out these awards at Davos this year. And they asked if I could design a set of five trophies. And the design that I ended up creating was basically some manzanita driftwood that we actually painted in structural paint. So it kind of has a look of glitter, but it's paint pigmentation that is cellular rather than chemical. And so when you look to nature and you think of like butterflies or scarabs, the reason we see their iridescent colors is not because of like a chemical composition. It's the... Wow. It's the molecular structure of how light refracts inside of the cells that give it its color scheme. And so we thought it'd be so cool to create these colorful gears, these colorful tree branches mounted on top of gears, which symbolize system change, cradling a glass globe to like this fragile earth that we're trying to protect. And I needed to find a way of getting that shipped from where I am all the way to Switzerland, in Davos, where this is going. Amazing. Ha. to be put on display. And of course, they wanted it to be as sustainable as possible. And I was like, well, I think I know one person that works in packaging. So I actually reached out to Dave, eventually got to chat with Don and the others in the team. I was really excited to just discover some fun materials, like this cruz foam packaging that we're going to be using. We're going to cut them out and convert them into pellets. And so this, for those who don't know, is a foam that is entirely biodegradable. I think you can even eat it, that's what I heard. ⁓ And it's made from chitin and cornstarch. And so it's, you know, this feels kind of exactly like squishy, like styrofoam, but this I think is going to be perfect to protect both the branches and the glass. And then we also have these, these, I guess also biodegradable zip ties. I forgot what they're called. Yeah, made from made from. ⁓ Yeah. Fiber straps. Yeah. So you have these fiber straps ⁓ that I guess are made from paper and biodegradable plastics or something that you can just kind of use to secure different packaging around the more sensitive areas. And all of that packed into a couple of cardboard boxes. So it was really interesting being on the side of needing to package something because I'm like, ⁓ this hasn't happened. I thought about how to package something. Yeah, those are called fiber straps. Yeah. Yes. Hahaha Because you want it to be, one of the ideas that we originally had was to use like wood crates and like reused wine crates, which I think would have worked, but that would have been so much heavier and it would have cost so much money. And then I think ultimately would have had a higher carbon footprint. And so it's like, we know, back to, back to, back to the lightweight. And so that was like a fun. Right. I'm so excited that you got to work with our team and got to collaborate. I can't wait to see those awards when ⁓ you're able to show them. I know it's kind of a... Yeah, I'll make a little video for you guys. And so it should be out ⁓ by the time this podcast is ready. And maybe we can, you can use some of that media to create something here. Show and tell. I'll add a link about that. Yes, sir. Exactly. Well, that's, that's incredible. Anything else you want to tell us about any new projects you've got coming up or anything that you're excited about as a, your artwork or projects. for sure. I mean, I continue to stalk the different COPs. mean, the Plastics Treaty looks like it's kind of stalled right now, so I'm going to shift my attention away from that. There's a COP on desertification happening in Mongolia this year in August that I'd like to do something for. We'll see if I manage to pull it off. COP 31, the climate conference, is going to be taking place in Turkey, so trying to find people that I can talk to to get permission to create some giant art installation that's maybe more ocean themed. Because I think... Hmm. I think Australia is the co-president of that conference and they really want to highlight all the Pacific Island nations. And so I think Oceans is going to be the theme of the next conference and I'd like to really get involved in that. But then I'm also just like generally open to collaborating with different people. think this year, you know, every project takes like six to nine months to develop because you're really trying to figure out what the right place at the right time to activate something looks like, right? Like I'd really love to... to work and support the EPR bill in Tennessee, but if I were to create art, where would I create it? Even if we had the money, where would you create it and what would the message be and how would that actually make a difference, right? And so I'm always looking both for like opportunities where art and policy get to intersect. And then of course we're always looking for like the financial partners who want to come in and support the work and to make it possible. And so it's a, I live in a really interesting world where there's like no. obvious roadmap on like what's going to happen next, but I'm always open to conversations if anyone wants to chat. Right. love that. You kind of have to be available for the universe to respond. Yeah. I love that. That's great. Well, that's how it is in life, right? Maybe the sustainable packaging coalition is something that you could be interested in. That's in Nashville. Senator Campbell will be there. And I think maybe that I'll connect you with that team, see if maybe there's a partnership there potentially. That's exactly what it is. I can't dance in the universe. Waiting for my next dance partner. Maybe, I I think of like, Cruise Foam is one company, I'm sure you guys know a ton more, but like, there's so much, obviously if you're making packaging, have the volume of material that's accessible to you is so high, because it has to be great unit economics for it to be worth it. And so like to create something out of sustainable alternatives that was large and really impressive at a space like a conference like that, I think would be like super fun. my work, one of the things that I... to be self-critical of my work is I think my portfolio overly focuses on what's wrong with the world and it doesn't focus on like the things that give us hope. And so if there are more reasons to be hopeful and more companies like Cruise Foam who can do better at scale and cheaper, like I would love to find ways of highlighting that kind of stuff because I just think it's so cool. you know, ⁓ I think the world needs more hope and when we can point them towards something that can share that, it just makes a better world because it gives us more resilience and a more positive outlook on what's possible. Well said. What a great way to finish the show. Thank you, Benjamin. Really appreciate your wisdom and the beautiful things that you create and the impactful things that you create. So thank you and please keep up the good work. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having me, man.