CARBON ARTS | creative solutions for a changing climate find us on: 
Ken Yonetani is a Japanese artist resident in Australia. He explores themes of fragility and consumerism in the context of climate change. Recent works have focussed on the Great Barrier Reef, including an installation that showed at the 53rd Venice biennale, where models served cake at 1pm every day, cake in the form of coral. The pollution of the Great Barrier Reef by sugar cane plantations is only one connection made explicit in this provoking and beautiful installation, all made of sugar.
A project of the RSA and Canon Europe, the WEEE man is made up of all the electronic waste that one typical UK person generates in a lifetime, from fridges to stereos to stove-tops. Created to illustrate and communicate the purposes of the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Products Directive, the WEEE man first appeared along the Thames in London in 2006, and was supported by Canon Europe. A fabulous visualisation feat, the WEEE man is an excellent example of the power of art to communicate the impacts of individual consumer choices, and generate support for legislation to address the need to recycle.
The Tree Hugger Project installs touching scenes like these in various locations around the world, including in Copenhagen and Poznan at the time of the annual UN Conference on Climate Change, to draw attention to, and help us rediscover a tender connection with nature. The project encourages people to install these works in their local environment.
English sculptor, Antony Gormley‘s Amazonian Field has been installed a number of times, most recently at the Royal Academy of Art’s 2009 exhibition, Earth: Art of a changing world. A vast number of small human figures fill a room and pour through the door, looking up at us with large eyes, expectantly, probingly. Intentionally crafted from the earth itself, the clay figures press upon us the vastness of collection is a reminder of our population explosion, as well as an invitation for collective action. Gormley has thought much about the role of art in a changing climate, stating in a recent piece for the British Council: ‘Is it possible to re-think art and take it from this finished-object status and make it into a verb, a participatory, open space, a place of transformation and the exchange of ideas and reflection on our state and status?’
Taiwanese artist Vincent J.F Huang installed Penguin Suicides underneath the Millenium Bridge in London in March 2010 with a letter from ‘Penguins Representative Bureau of London’ appearing on his website to explain the creatures’ act of protest and personal sacrifice in the name of global warming awareness raising. The plight of animals in the North and South poles is poignantly represented by this work, which attracted much attention.
SOL.a is a kinetic sculpture, which was commissioned for Melbourne’s State of Design Festival 2010 and sat in Federation Square’s plaza. The sculpture is activated by the sun’s thermal energy and also generates renewable energy, communicating to the public the power of renewable resources. It is a collaboration between Singapore-based artist Grace Tan from Kwodrant, the OUTr Research Lab from RMIT University: Craig Douglas, Rosalea Monacella, Greg Afflick, Thomas Harper, Carlie Young, Kathryn English, Joseline Setiawan, and Armando Oliver, and Arup Engineers Melbourne.