Québécoise DJ and producer Blond:ish, also known as Vivie-Ann Bakos, brings sustainability to the mainstream music game. Through cleaning beaches, producing a mini-documentary series, and advocating for the eradication of single-use plastic at music events, the Montréal-based musician has become one of the figureheads of sustainability in the music industry.
Blond:ish was born in 2008 when the two Canadian artists Anstascia D'Elene Corniere and Vivie-Ann Bakos began hosting, promoting, and DJing nights called Blond:ish at the Cherry Nightclub in Montreal. Today, Blond:ish is performed as a solo act by Bakos. Over the past 12 years, the duo has released roughly a dozen of original productions and countless popular remixes. But beyond her musical success, Blond:ish has also gained recognition for her efforts to elevate the (electronic) music industry to a more sustainable state of mind.
"I was playing at Warung in Brazil, one of the most iconic clubs in the world, at the end of the night you get a beautiful sunrise... but I could see cleaners coming out and picking up a mountain of plastic like robots. That juxtaposition made me think, 'I need to do something about this'."
AN ENVIRONMENTAL EPIPHANY
In response to her environmental epiphany, Blond:ish founded the Bye Bye Plastic Foundation. What started off as organized beach cleaning sessions with like-minded sustainability ambassadors has become an educational instance for green music production and events. Today, Bye Bye Plastic provides information on recyclable music event gadgets hosts informative panels on festivals and provides access to all kinds of educational resources on sustainability.
"Basically what I noticed from many conversations with DJs and colleagues in our scene is that we all want change, but nobody has time to do it. So I decided to take the baton and go deep on it", that is how Vivie-Ann humbly describes the inciting moment of her environmental protection efforts. Together with a team of industry veterans and experts on sustainability, she conducts research on finding universal solutions to eradicate single-use plastic and therewith paves the way for a greener music industry future. Being an A-list act at prominent festivals all around the world, we hope for Blond:ish to inspire more of her fellow artists to follow her activist path.
"We're like the babysitter of the music industry. We've done a lot of the research for venues and can help hold their hands through the process. Through small, actionable steps we can change this... it's a lot less overwhelming than it might seem to those on the outside."
Get ready for a post-COVID19 festival season with Bye Bye Plastic's resources to sustainable music events here: https://linktr.ee/byebyeplastic.
