#TerraChamps: Meet ARTivist Marina Testino
Welcome to the first official #TerraChamps! In this new series, we’ll be spotlighting the movers and shakers who are championing environmental issues and social justice.
We are SO excited to feature Marina Testino as our first of many #TerraChamps. For those of you who haven’t spotted her on Instagram (@marinatestino), Marina is one of the world’s favorite ARTivists (art + activist). She’s the founder of Point Off View, a mission-driven agency focused on sustainable digital communication—but raising awareness on conscious consumerism is where her passion truly lies.
The 25-year-old is making waves in the world of sustainable fashion (literally, she has a Vogue Italy photo where she’s surrounded by an ocean of garbage). And when she’s not posing with plastic, she’s busy educating us all about how waste (like plastic water bottles) can end up being transformed into clothing. Her “Sustainable Fridays” Instagram series is where she talks about how we can all reduce our footprint on the environment. When the rest of us were getting ready for a quarantine spent in sweatpants and slippers, she was busy producing fashion campaign content from home—and doing so in a way that spread the word about some of the world’s most sustainable and ethical fashion brands.
More recently, Marina’s been busy encouraging us all to have our voices heard by voting. Aware that we need to keep the momentum going, she knows that knowledge is key. That’s why she’s been partnering with organizations like Greenpeace USA to help out on their Planeta G web series—which is all about the intersection between Latinex identity and the environmental movement. Between beach clean-ups and nude swims on the beach to denounce plastic-containing swimwear (through her #WeSeaThrough campaign), this #TerraChamp is spreading tips about doing laundry sustainably, telling us how we can make our homes greener, and sharing her green beauty secrets.
Marina may keep her closet minimal with a capsule wardrobe, but it’s clear that she’s got a lot on her plate. The planet is certainly lucky to have her and, as you’ll see in her interview, she’s lucky to have some #TerraChamps herself to constantly inspire her.
You have a series on Instagram called Sustainable Fridays. What inspired you to start this?
I started this during quarantine for 2 reasons. Firstly, I saw the impact the pandemic was having on small sustainable brands, I wanted to find a way to support them and keep giving them visibility throughout this period. Secondly, lockdown showed me the importance and impact of reducing our footprint on the environment, everyone was at home, fashion campaigns came to a halt, which radically diminished the cost of shipping, travelling and everything else involved in producing content. I wanted to find a way to produce content from home, eliminating that footprint by creating derivative content from brand’s existing footage.
You call yourself an ARTivist. We love that because it takes getting creative to make a change. What other artists or projects to mobilize around environmental change have impacted you?
Some people who have inspired me so far are @basia_gosz @typoe @
We love to see the encouragement of the younger generation to get out there and vote but it’s also so important to vote in local elections. How do you think we can keep this momentum going?
I think information and knowledge are always the key to change and to have a real impact, therefore I believe it is important to keep raising awareness of the consequences and importance every election has.
Who have been your #TerraChamps aka your biggest inspirations in life?
I’m constantly inspired in my daily life by people around me, their projects, the way people fight and speak up for what they believe in. For what I do, inspiration really comes to me with living life and seeing what can be done to change our habits for the better!
