CCB Magazine

Mona Lüders is a sustainability artist and also works as a model. She is best known for her "Windows of Consumption" project. How do you survive as a sustainability artist? Can you make a living from it? A conversation about art, criticism and an existence in between. 

Interview Jens Thomas 

CCB Magazine:  Mona, you became known for your "Windows of Consumption" project, through which you criticize the overconsumption of Western society. Now that we're all being urged to save energy, do you feel a sense of satisfaction that says, "I told you so"?  

Mona Lüders: No, not that, but I hope that after the Ukraine war the issue of saving energy will be tackled consistently. In the future, we should all develop practical solutions and not be guided by the fear that we won't be able to maintain our standard of living. Currently, a new era is beginning. And my hope with the project was, of course, that we wouldn't need a war to wake up.

CCB Magazine: You initiated the "Windows of Consumption" project in 2018. What is it about?

Mona Lüders: I traveled to India for a few weeks in 2018. It changed my awareness. There is so much trash in the villages and streets in India; often it is simply burned on the street. Back in Berlin, I then noticed for the first time that everything I throw in the garbage can disappears from my field of vision: That's how the idea of "Windows of Consumption" was born. I simply draped the garbage in my own window. My first Windows of Consumption was created directly in my living room with my own plastic and paper waste. I did the project mainly with people in Berlin and in Milan with a designer. In Milan I filled the designer's window with her plastic bottles - and she bought a water filter! A real success, I think. The window is a kind of symbolism. It is the gateway to the outside world.  

India changed my consciousness: there is so much garbage in the villages and on the streets. Then, in Berlin, I perceived for the first time that everything I throw in the garbage can disappears from my field of vision: That's how the idea of "Windows of Consumption" was born

Window closed or window open? Depends on the weather. The Windows of Consumption project by Mona Lüders. Photos: Lüders.

CCB Magazine: You are also a photographer, your focus as an artist is on sustainability. But you also work at a startup and as a model - so you move between worlds. In Germany alone, 230 million brand-new garments are shredded, shipped or incinerated in the fashion industry every year. One in five garments is hardly ever worn. How do you reconcile your demand for sustainability with a world of overconsumption?

Mona Lüders: The question is justified, but that's exactly why I left the fashion industry years ago. My compromise today is that I only work for sustainable brands. Of course, that means I get booked much less, that's clear. But I remain true to my claim. I also stopped shopping at fast fashion companies years ago. I also wear mostly second-hand, vintage or sustainable brands, for which I am happy to pay a little more.

CCB Magazine: How did you become what you are? And how did the topic of sustainability come into your life?

Mona Lüders: I grew up in Hamburg. I went to the Alexander von Humboldt High School there, which is a kind of environmental school and was something special back then. Basically, I've always been environmentally conscious. Then, as a teenager, I was discovered as a model and started working as a model besides school - first nationally and in Europe, and at some point internationally. That's how I came to New York for the first time in 2007. New York was the gateway to art for me: here I enrolled in the National Academy of Fine Arts to study classical art. After graduating, however, I quickly realized that I would not be a successor to Michelangelo, nor did I want to be. I began to exchange the brush for the camera. For a while I was an assistant to an advertising photographer, until I decided to move to Berlin in 2015. Here there were these free spaces everywhere and a big consumer-critical scene. In addition, the consumer-critical film "They live" by John Carpenter and artists like Ai WeiWei, Vik Muniz, Andreas Gursky and Christo fascinated me at that time. I realized that I wanted to create an aesthetic work, but that it had to have a deeper meaning. My art should be criticism, but also inspire.

CCB Magazine: Fine, but what do you live on?

Mona Lüders: At the moment I'm working as a content creator and manager in the startup I mentioned earlier. My goal is, of course, to be able to make a living from my art at some point. At least for this year, that's what I'm aiming for.

It's best to think of art forms together with activism. I'm thinking here of Makode Linde's Cake Performance, the Guerilla Girls about women's equality in museums, Keith Heiring's Aids campaign, or Ai Weiwei's political works - these are art forms that convey emotions but also inspire activism

Protestaktion mit Atemschutzmasken von Mona Lüders. Foto: Lüders

CCB Magazine: Many are also turning the tables. We are currently experiencing a wave of new climate protests: activists are sticking themselves to the streets, and artworks are being splashed with food scraps in museums. The question is not how to make a living from art, but how to survive in this world in the long run. What's your take on these forms of protest? Do they create what art does not? 

Mona Lüders: I wouldn't say that. Art often takes place in closed rooms, in museums or galleries. It's also often too abstract and unspecific. Activism, on the other hand, has a clear goal, but is often striking. I think that activism - unlike art - definitely has limits. No one should ever come to harm. When people make art or millions of young people around the world meet peacefully to protest, like at Fridays for Future, people take to the streets with concrete demands. I think that's good. You can literally feel how positively charged and emotional the atmosphere is. Then you also want to move something.

CCB Magazine: What is the role of art? What can and should it reveal? And can it reveal anything at all that is not already known?

Mona Lüders: It's best to think of art forms today together with activism. I'm thinking here of Makode Linde's Cake Performance, the Guerilla Girls about women's equality in museums, Keith Heiring's AIDS campaign, or Ai Weiwei's political works. These are all art forms that convey emotion, but also inspire activism. In my opinion, this is where the power of art lies.

CCB Magazine: What's next in life? What are your goals, plans and next projects?

Mona Lüders: In December I made a new Windows of Consumption in New York, with the trash I found in the Subway. Right now I'm starting a new project on the beauty industry - here I want to show that makeup items like eye shadow, lipstick, etc. often end up in the trash half used. But the garbage is not even recyclable. In the future I want to combine my art more with activism and innovative projects, I also want to work with entrepreneurs, sustainable companies and environmental projects. Because social issues in an environmental context just interest me. On the side, I also got a small role as a German detective in an online series in Milan, which we will shoot next year. As you can see, it remains exciting. Just like life.