May « 2010 « Carbon Arts

Greenhouse Britain

Vision of future development in London

Newton Harrison and Helen Mayer Harrison from San Diego have been collaborating artists since the 1970s. In 2008 with a grant from the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and with scientific collaborators from the Tyndall Centre and Sheffield University, the Harrisons presented ‘Greenhouse Britain‘. The work is a visioning exercise for a future Britain transformed by rising sea levels, where the population responds in positive ways to transform the country into a carbon sink and build vertical settlements that are sensitive to cultural and environmental conditions. The exhibition is also available to view online.

The Weather Report

The Weather Report: Art and Climate Change, was an exhibition held in 2007 at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition was a collaboration with EcoArts and brought together artists and scientists to engage the community in a dialogue around a future influenced by climate change.

Reduce Arts Flights

Reduce Arts Flights is a work by artist, Gustav Metzger, responding to the proliferation of arts fairs and arts tourism, and associated air travel. Produced as a leaflet the work is intended as a campaign to encourage artists and the arts industry to reflect on mass mobilization and address its own carbon footprint. The logo, reduced to RAF, is a reference to the Royal Airforce as well as the Red Army Faction conjuring up images of airforce destruction and reflecting the artist’s longstanding opposition to capitalism and the commercialisation of art.

Nuage Vert

Nuage Vert, or Green Cloud, is a public art installation by artists He He performed in Helsinki in 2008 in collaboration with Helsinki Energy. By projecting green light onto the smoke emitted from a city power station the changing output of the station is visible. This provided a means for communicating the results of efforts to reduce energy use in the district, whereby campaigns to turn off lights, and so forth, had visible effect. Helsinki Energy initiated a release of real-time energy information as a result. A clever and simple way to provide a feedback loop to the public, Nuage Vert looks is seeking funds to do the same in Paris.

Melting Ice/Hot Topic

Melting Ice Exhibition Poster

Melting Ice / Hot Topic was a travelling exhibition from 2007-2008 of 40 artists working on the theme of climate change, developed in partnership with the UNEP Art for Environment Program and the Natural World Museum.

Climate Clock Initiative

The Climate Clock Initiative seeks to generate a work of public art in San Jose that draws on the technical and artistic prowess of silicon valley to engage the population in understanding and acting on climate change. Started as a competition, a number of short-listed teams have been working since 2008 to develop the winning concept, which will be revealed in 2010 at the 01SJ Biennale. The Initiative also seeks to expand the concept to other cities worldwide, to combine cutting edge technology for data measurement and display with arts’ power to communicate and engage.

Greenwashing: Environment: Promises, Perils and Perplexities

Held in Turin in 2008, the Greenwashing exhibition brought together 25 artists to critically examine our understanding of ‘environment’ and ‘sustainability’ and the complexities emerging as the climate changes.

Propositions for an Uncertain Future

Propositions for an Uncertain Future: five responses through art to a world without water, is a public art project curated by Australian artist, Lyndal Jones, as a creative response to the climate change challenge. In this once-upon-at-time wall of water, a public fountain, switched off by the City of Melbourne as a response to the drought, which has aflicted the country for many years, five artists have displayed works, including Lyndal herself.

Carbon Arts