On Earth Day, we look back at our interview with activist and all-around environmentalist Asher Jay. From Mission’s Environment issue.
Artist, animal rights activist, designer… Is there anything Asher Jay can’t do? After encountering some of the world’s most dangerous species on almost every continent, Jay’s fearless nature frees her to embark on adventures the average person wouldn’t dream of. Jay has dedicated her life to fighting illegal trafficking, saving biodiversity, and conserving our planet’s natural resources.
Her design background coupled with her passion for improving the planet result in beautiful, thought-provoking artwork, most recently an installation called “Message in a Bottle” in New York City. This installation at National Geographic Encounter in Times Square includes 365 plastic bottles emblazoned with personalized messages about ocean pollution. Mission asked Jay how she got started, what holds her back, and how she continues to make an impact.
Ondine Jean-Baptiste: You have raised awareness for the unethical treatment of animals and the earth in myriad ways, including art installations, documentaries, and speeches. Did you always dream of becoming a conservationist and animal activist?
Asher Jay: When I was 16, I boarded the Rainbow Warrior and heard the REM song “End of the World” as part of a Greenpeace presentation, set to the montage of activists on the front lines, making a difference. That was the first time I was convinced I wanted to have a voice in this way. My mother empowered my active participation in local initiatives to restore sea turtle populations that were plummeting due to poaching and exposed me to the negative aspects of zoos and the trade in wildlife. So I grew up with a deep and early sensitivity toward animals and nature. I was, however, deeply emotionally unraveled by the destructive nature of humans. I suppose I empathize with the wild I try to protect because I identify with their vulnerability. I am just beginning to cultivate emotional resilience, which I think is integral for those of us working on building ecological resilience.
While it’s easy to be rational and think things through, actions that enable change are sparked by emotion. It’s why all my work prioritizes catalyzing an emotional response over instilling an intellectual understanding, as I truly believe emotions galvanize people to move out of self-indulgence toward being inclusive and involved in others’ needs. Have the courage to follow your heart—it knows what your mind will catch up to eventually.
OJB: What do you love most about your work?
AJ: [I love to] push the boundaries on traditional exploration through my interdisciplinary, multimedia approach. I get to push boundaries daily, try things I haven’t experienced before, travel to places I haven’t seen, meet people I didn’t know.
I also love encountering diversity, in culture, people, wildlife, environments, architecture, climate… Diversity inspires me and informs my work, but most importantly, it deepens my appreciation for connections that bring us together despite pronounced differences.
OJB: What has been your proudest moment?
AJ: I don’t hang my hat on what I have accomplished, because there’s always more to be done and the flow is bigger than the individual eddies I pull an oar in. I just keep my head down and precipitously hack away at the complex environmental problem sets confronting us through collaborations with some truly remarkable minds. I thrive in being a gray area person who isn’t hard and fast about what she discerns. You have to be willing to shift and evolve if you want to emulate the thing you are trying to protect—life, in all the forms it has found expression in. I am willing to be wrong, to change and try things differently or to fail again. That’s why I love art, I suppose. Even when it looks finished and is hanging on a wall, it’s actually
undetermined until a viewer gives it transient subjective meaning. Pride can only find expression in a framework of certainty with defined beginnings and endings, and nothing about life is certain—that’s the beauty of process.
OJB: Your fearless nature has taken you all over the globe to do the work you love; you’ve hiked lava fields in Hawaii, run with gazelles in the Serengeti, and come face-to-face with cheetahs and lions. Does anything still scare you?
AJ: My top fears are: 1. Haunted houses. 2. Climbing or being poised at great heights without a safety harness and line to rappel with. I fear I love the feeling of free-falling too much to fight the gravity offered by a precipice, both literally and metaphorically. This holds true of love, career opportunities, bungee jumps, and skydiving. 3. Insects that impregnate mammalian flesh with their brood. It’s a legitimate concern in the African countries I visit. 4. Translucent pale house geckos. 5. Not evolving past the mistakes and shortcomings of my parents, and making their limitations mine. 6. Fire ants. 7. Being stung by jellyfish. I have hit my life quota on cnidarians and avoid them with a passion I otherwise reserve only for watermelons and cilantro.
OJB: You’ve settled on calling New York City home, a concrete jungle in its own right. How do you balance your desire for increased awareness and compassion in the world with the fast-paced, oftentimes money-driven capitalist nature at play?
AJ: It has taken me 16 long years to finally discern that New York is not where I want to reside for the entirety of my life. I want to live in big-sky country amid tall aspens and take my newly adopted handsome puppy on hikes down sparsely populated wilderness trails. I want a different pace of life going forward. New York has enriched me and made me the woman I am, but the kind of person I want to be needs to have less capitalistic, manic concrete jungle and more tranquil, restorative open spaces that nurture my whole soul. New York has been a wonderful place to find expression professionally, and I don’t think I would have come into myself as much anywhere else, but the next chapter of my life is about consolidation, and I want to bring all of my pieces together harmoniously, in a restorative setting. I need wild.
OJB: What’s next for you?
AJ: Kids of all backgrounds and ages. I want to collaborate with children and help them realize tangible changes in the world they live in and will inherit. I partnered up with National Geographic Encounter, [sustainable bottle brand] Dopper, and [mobile app] Litterati to launch an interactive web app on June 8, World Oceans Day. Kids can submit their own “bottles” to the “Message in a Bottle” campaign. The 365 bottles with the most public support on the platform 365 days from the campaign’s launch will be displayed in Times Square at National Geographic Encounter.
I love kids, particularly teaching and co-creating with them. I love the way they think, the hope they harbor, and the resilience they are capable of. I want to empower youth participation—particularly now with the rise in school shootings, where youth voices are speaking out, yet many adults seem dismissive of what they’re trying to say. I want them to not only be seen and heard, but to follow that through to impacts that bring about real world change. This platform will encourage a lot of active participation, because I don’t believe anyone should have to wait to make a difference in the world.
