My chapter A Close Reading of Climate-related Art: Aesthetics and Creative Engagement with the Structural Causes of the Climate Crisis was published by Palgrave Macmillan in the book Confronting the Climate Crisis: Activism, Technology and Ecoaesthetics, edited by Daniel Binns and Rebecca Najdowski.
About the book
“This collection examines how activism, media, and creative practices shape our understanding of the climate crisis. Bringing together perspectives from media studies, environmental humanities, and artistic research, Confronting the Climate Crisis: Activism, Technology and Ecoaesthetics explores how digital technologies, protest movements, and ecoaesthetic interventions influence ecological discourse. Fifteen chapters interrogate a range of case studies, from student activism and climate-related art to the role of video games, memes, and machine learning in framing and comprehending environmental collapse. The collection also considers how experimental cinema, podcasts, and documentary practices can move beyond entertainment and spectacle to foster lasting and meaningful action against environmental change. Highlighting the intersections of politics, technology, and aesthetics, this book offers a vital resource for scholars, artists, and activists seeking to navigate and challenge contemporary climate narratives. It argues that creative and technological interventions are essential to rethinking our relationship with the planet and shaping new modes of ecological action.” (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-89606-4.)
The following text is a preprint of the following chapter: Ulrike Hahn, A Close Reading of Climate-related Art: Aesthetics and Creative Engagement with the Structural Causes of the Climate Crisis, published in Confronting the Climate Crisis: Activism, Technology and Ecoaesthetics, edited by Daniel Binns and Rebecca Najdowski, 2025, Palgrave Macmillan. It is the version of the author’s manuscript prior to acceptance for publication and has not undergone peer review on behalf of the Publisher. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-89606-4.
A Close Reading of Climate-related Art: Aesthetics and Creative Engagement with the Structural Causes of the Climate Crisis
Ulrike Hahn
Introduction
Climate-related art warrants a deeper look because it has the potential to create meaningful engagement with the complex topic of climate change. This chapter focuses on a select number of artworks to receive in-depth, rich, and interpretive insights. A close reading was done for the following four artworks: Ursula Biemann’s Deep Weather (video essay, shown in gallery/museum context and online), Diane Burko’s work Summer Heat, 1 & 2 of her Seeing Climate Change exhibition (painting, shown in gallery/museum context and online), Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing’s Ice Watch (installation, public space, photography and video material shown online and in gallery/museum context) and Jason deCaires Taylor’s underwater sculpture Vicissitudes (installation, public space, photography shown online and in gallery/museum context).
These particular artists and artworks, shown in both public spaces and galleries/museums, were chosen for their diversity of mediums ranging from video art, painting to sculpture and installation. Two works (Deep Weather, Summer Heat, 1 & 2) are representational (i.e., focusing on visual representation), and two works (Ice Watch, Vicissitudes) are experiential (i.e., one experiences the work with all their senses).
The close reading focuses on the aesthetics, if and how the works engage with structural causes and/or consequences of the climate crisis, and if the artwork contains an activist message.[1] The following research question was posed: How do visual climate-related artworks employ aesthetics and engage with politics and structural causes of the climate crisis?
Instead of a formal analysis (which investigates art on its own while social factors are mostly left aside), this artwork analysis looks at both the art and social factors and thus follows an interdisciplinary approach between sociology of the arts and the humanities. The present artwork analysis does not aim for generalization but for particularizing (Alexander 2021). It is an illustrative account of climate-related art, not an exhaustive mapping of all contemporary art dealing with the climate crisis.
Analysis
Ursula Biemann: Deep Weather (2013)
Description of the artwork
The work Deep Weather (2013) by Swiss artist Ursula Biemann (born 1955) is a ca. 9-minutelong video essay. It has been shown in various places, for example at the Prada Foundation in Venice (2023), in the Centre for Contemporary Art and Ecology, RADIUS, in Delft (2022), and at the Montreal Biennale (2014). At the time of writing this chapter, the work can be accessed on the website of the artist (Geobodies n.d.). The video essay is narrated by a whispering voice as white text appears on the screen, overlaying still images or video sequences. The video essay is divided into two parts, a ca. two-minute-long part entitled ‘Carbon geologies’ and a ca. 7minute-long part entitled ‘Hydrogeographies’.
After a short sequence showing cargo vessels moving along a shoreline, the camera pans across a river running through tar sand fields, seen from a bird’s eye view. The irregular shapes of the fields and the water (often reflecting the cloudy sky) are contrasted by the straight lines of transport roads and construction works that cut through the landscape. Machines can be seen, which have carved their way into the landscape, and an industrial landscape out of which smoke is emitted (work).
The whispering voice makes clear that the images have been shot in Alberta, Canada, more specifically around the Athabasca River area. The voice, which can be heard together with a sound of whooshing wind, explains that oil miners take out tar sands in an area as large as England. To transit to the second (and much longer) part of the video essay, the narrator connects the mining of tar sands to the rising sea level: ‘For a hundred more years there is enough stuff for heavy fuels that will bring toxic clouds over the boreal woods and continue to warm and swell the Seas. No longer to be witnessed but elsewhere, in equatorial zones’.
At 2:20 min, the video changes to the second part, ‘Hydrogeographies’. The location switches from Canada to Bangladesh, and the camera changes from aerial view to eyelevel. Instead of the sound of wind, the sounds of people who are transporting and placing sandbags at the shore to make land can be heard. These full-screen shots are alternated with split-screen sequences showing a person on one half of the screen while the other half shows landscape scenes (water and a strip of land, no people). In each of the split-screen scenes, different people stand, directly looking at the camera, and thus the viewer. Only in these split-screen scenes the whispering narrator (with the text superimposed on the image and a similar sound of whooshing wind to the first part of the video) explains the impacts on the area and the activities taken by the people.
Existing coverage and artwork analysis
Structural causes around the Athabasca River area
While the artist is based in Zurich, Switzerland, Biemann is involved in fieldwork in remote areas in many of her works, co-creating projects with local communities and is invested in connecting scientific and indigenous perspectives. For Deep Weather, she went on field visits to Northern Canada and the Ganges Delta to document the territory (Ouellet 2020). This is why I position Biemann’s work as part of Galafassi et al.’s (2018) second movement of climate-related art, which focuses on co-creation.
The choice of the word weather in the title of the video essay may seem peculiarly chosen at first, as climate may appear a more appropriate term when talking about climate change. However, Biemann’s combination of weather with deep makes the connection to deep time. Biemann (2016: 10) notes in a text about the work: ‘As we scoop out fossil and mineral matters from deep geological strata into the daylight and out into the atmosphere, climate change makes us think in deep time’. Deep time can be understood as ‘distant times beyond the scope of human experience’ (Ginn et al. 2018: 214). Therefore, Biemann combines a word that is about the short-term (weather) with a word that has a long-term, distant time connotation (deep). This unification appears to be a contradiction, but it could also hint at the existence of consequences taking place already in the present (e.g. in Bangladesh), while more impacts will be experienced in deep time.
Biemann is well aware of the challenges of representing climate change, referring to philosopher Timothy Morton who sees it as a hyperobject, something that is enormously spread in space and time in relation to humans (Morton 2013). But she also finds that while we are not able to portray climate change, ‘we can read it videographically through such sceneries’ (Biemann 2016: 11). Her work shows both causes in the Global North (Canada) and consequences in the Global South (Bangladesh) (but also in Canada). It demonstrates how the impacts of a local ecology impact a remote location. Thus, it has planetary dimensions.
The video essay attributes responsibility by visually showing that ‘Carbon geologies’ (the extraction of tar) cause ‘Hydrogeographies’ (rising sea levels, cyclones). The whispering voice, which provides supporting information about the causes and effects, makes this unmissable. The sound of whooshing wind further supports this atmospheric connection (the atmosphere that brings greenhouse gases across the globe) between the two remote sites. Thus, Deep Weather addresses systems ecology. Not in the sense of many works described by Demos (2016) which implement systems ecology as part of the work, rather Biemann’s work represents interconnected systems such as forests, oil and water ecologies, environmental dynamics and social action, local and planetary systems, and the Earth system at large.
Politics of environmental justice
Deep Weather is very clearly about climate change. Whereas there is no explicit activist call voiced in the video essay, the artist’s biography makes clear that she does have a connection to activism. Biemann co-initiated a collective, World of Matter, which ‘considers visual source material a valuable instrument for education, activist work, research, and raising general public awareness’ (World of Matter n.d.: para. 3). Even though a concrete solution is not offered in the video, it seems evident that tar extraction cannot continue in the way it has been operating.
Moreover, the work can be seen as developing a political ecology. Biemann’s use of text makes the political ecology even more clear and specifically a politics of environmental justice. This is because it examines causes and effects across the globe with attention paid to power relations and people, which has been described as particularly important for art that addresses climate change (e.g. see Demos, Scott and Banerjee 2021; Yusoff and Gabrys 2011). For example, the video essay suggests that there is an imbalance between the sites of tar extraction (Canada) and sites of exhaustion (Bangladesh). While the industry in Alberta profits from the tar sand extraction, the Bangladeshi people suffer from rising sea levels. Moreover, the short duration of ‘Carbon geologies’ compared to the second part on ‘Hydrogeographies’ may imply that the safe distance from the mining of tar sands is only of short duration and that the impacts will be felt much longer, particularly by vulnerable communities. Climate change further exacerbates inequalities. However, the Bangladeshi people should not be seen as merely disempowered as they join forces trying to adapt to the dire situation.
From the industrial sublime to eco-realism
The ‘Carbon geologies’ segment portrays the causes of climate change from a bird’s eye view, excluding human presence and creating a sense of detachment. Aesthetically, the images of the ‘Carbon geologies’ part remind of an industrial sublime, in which enormous human-made infrastructures are aestheticized. In Biemann’s video this is only one part of the work. In contrast to the first part, ‘Hydrogeographies’ appears closer and more confronting because it involves people (Bangladeshi citizens) directly facing the camera (during the split-screen scenes) and shown working at the shore.
Moreover, in the second part of the video, landscape scenes in split-screen appear in tones of grey and blue, visualizing the power of the sea, of nature, in which humanity does not have a place as no people are visible. This mirrors the river scenes in the first part, in which neither workers nor First Nations are portrayed. Biemann (2016: 11) talks about a ‘posthumanist realism’, and Ouellet (2020: 128) calls Biemann’s approach ‘eco-realist’. These are not future-oriented or dystopian scenes, but contemporary, realistic conditions.
The aesthetic choices and Biemann’s portrayal of structural causes and her politics of environmental justice can be related to Kagan’s (2011) concept of an aesthetics of sustainability. The work shows a sensibility to the complexity of climate change causes and effects, and it moves beyond a simplified, individualized or localized perception. Moreover, it demonstrates a sensibility to connected patterns by ‘unravel[ling] the Earth’s ecologies as an interconnected system where its crises cannot be looked at in a vacuum’, as the exhibition brochure of RADIUS stresses (RADIUS 2022: 10).
Diane Burko: Summer Heat, 1 & 2 (2020)
Description of the artwork
The colours are vivid in the exhibition room of Seeing Climate Change at The American University Museum in Washington DC. The exhibition features a visceral, seductive beauty that starkly contrasts with the devastating topic that is its focus. Many of the works are abstract, but based on data or maps. For example, the work Summer Heat, 1 & 2 (2020) is a large (84 by 162 inches; 213 by 411 cm) landscape format work, mixed media on canvas, which consists of several panels (work).
At the left side, two smaller, approximately square panels are positioned on top of each other. The top left panel shows a world map, with the continents coloured black and the water in shades of blue. While the shape and size of most continents seems to follow approximately common cartographies, Antarctica on the bottom is featured as a large black mass, in front of which a chart is positioned. The chart depicts carbon dioxide concentration in ppm (parts per million) over time, however the chart is difficult to read as it nearly vanishes into the black Antarctic territory. On top of the chart, the number 415,26 ppm can be read.
The lower left panel is mostly painted in red and black colours and appears to show a fire seen from eye-level that is covering the sky, of which only a small part of blue is left in the top of the panel. A map of Australia (in red) in the right bottom corner of this panel and the shape of a kangaroo next to a burnt tree that can be discerned within the fire suggests that it may be a bush fire in Australia. In the bottom part of the panel, on a black surface (possibly burnt earth), another chart can be seen which seems to be showing carbon dioxide concentrations again. The number 415,26 ppm is visible as in the top left panel.
On the right of the two square panels, a much larger panel again combines a map with a chart and parts that seem to evoke some eye-level view, this time of a water surface with ice. The map (Italy and Sicily are clearly identifiable) is coloured in shades of red. Underneath the map are shades of blue and white. On the right is another chart, this one seems to represent increasing temperatures over time. The blue (water-coloured) paint of the water surface with ice is dropping down in the bottom right section, contrasting the rising graph.
Existing coverage and artwork analysis
Bearing witness to the impacts of climate change
The title of the exhibition, Seeing Climate Change, could refer to science’s attempts to see and visualize climate change, or to the artist bearing witness to the impacts of climate change, such as rising temperatures, melting ice, endangered reefs and wildfires, which she makes visible in her paintings.
Like Biemann, Burko has travelled to many sites that she documents (Burko, Garrard and Broude 2021). Both artists combine aerial and eye-level views in their works and show effects and causes that are simultaneously happening. In Biemann’s video work, a causation is established, yet both phenomena (sea level rising in Bangladesh, tar sand extraction in Canada) also occur simultaneously. In Burko’s painting the causes and impacts are meshed together, and everything appears to happen at the same time. For example, in the smaller panels, the fires, which are triggered by increasing temperatures due to a rising carbon dioxide concentration, in turn release carbon dioxide, further exacerbating the situation. In the larger panel, temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, and water is swelling.
While Biemann focuses on the extraction of tar sands in Northern Canada and its effect on the communities in Bangladesh, Burko’s work is more broad, concentrating on carbon dioxide emissions and the global impact. Biemann shows specific local environmental and social systems (with planetary dimensions), and Burko represents natural systems more generally and shows scientific figures.
Art and activism
There is no explicit written political, activist message within the work Summer Heat. Yet, similar to Biemann, Burko’s work still leaves no doubt that it is about climate change. Through its colours, maps, graphs and title, it becomes clear to the viewer that the work addresses melting glaciers, rising temperatures, CO2 concentration, and fires. Through its visual language, the painting also subtly communicates what is necessary: lower carbon dioxide emissions.
Like Biemann, Burko engages in activism around her work. Burko considers herself an activist, and she is heavily involved in public engagement through lectures and interviews (Burko 2021). She aims to create environmental awareness and ‘activist engagement among her audiences’ (Burko, Garrard and Broude 2021: 20). Therefore, the activism happens in the form of events around the work, but is not explicitly voiced in the work itself. Burko is moreover a feminist activist. For example, she co-founded the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) and contributed to the establishment of the Distinguished Feminist Award.
Seductive beauty and terrifying sublime
There are analogies between Burko’s (born 1945) abstract work and the tradition of the abstract sublime, which was described by art historian Robert Rosenblum as the sublime in complete abstraction (Rosenblum 1961). Yet, there are also differences to the abstract sublime because Burko combines her art with maps, graphs, and symbols. The collaboration between art and science is highly important to Burko (Burko 2021). Her work is thus not completely abstract, but rather a combination of art, science, and abstraction – a referential abstraction instead of a complete abstraction (Burko, Garrard and Broude 2021).
The sublime plays a role in both Biemann’s and Burko’s work, yet in different ways (the industrial sublime in Biemann’s Deep Weather, and the seductive beauty and terrifying sublime in Burko’s Summer Heat). Moreover, both artists do not only use the sublime, but they also employ other aesthetic strategies (i.e., Biemann’s eco-realism, Burko’s referential abstractions and use of maps and graphs). In the exhibition catalogue (Burko, Garrard and Broude 2021), Norma Broude, who is curator along Mary D. Garrard, addresses the tightrope that sublime aesthetics walk. It has the potential to draw the viewers in, compel them, but it can also numb them. Burko is described as successfully navigating this challenge.
As with Biemann’s work, Burko’s can also be related to Kagan’s (2011) concept of an aesthetics of sustainability. Summer Heat appears to particularly foster a sensibility to connected patterns by portraying the interdependences of natural systems through layers of paint, maps, graphs and symbols.
Olafur Eliason and Minik Rosing: Ice Watch (2014, 2015, 2018)
Description of the artwork
Ice Watch (2014, 2015, 2018) by artist Olafur Eliasson and geologist Minik Rosing is a largescale public artwork of blocks of glacial ice arranged in a circle (work). The installations took place in Copenhagen (at City Hall Square in 2014), Paris (Place du Panthéon, 2015), and London (in front of Bloomberg’s European headquarters and in front of Tate Modern, 2018) (Olafur Eliasson n.d. a).
The formation varies slightly between the editions, as can be seen on the pictures of the artist’s website (Olafur Eliasson n.d. a): While 12 blocks of ice were arranged in one circle in Copenhagen and Paris, an outer circle of 12, a middle circle of 9 and an inner circle of 3 blocks were arranged outside Tate Modern, and a ring of 6 blocks outside of Bloomberg’s European headquarters in London. The ice has been harvested from free-floating blocks from the Greenland ice sheet and then transported in coolers to the respective cities (Olafur Eliasson n.d. a; Hornby 2017; Julie’s Bicycle 2019). The combined ice blocks weigh around 100 tonnes in Copenhagen (Hornby 2017), 80 in Paris (Olafur Eliasson n.d. b), and 110 tonnes in London (Ice Watch London n.d.) in total. In Paris, the circumference of the circle was 20 meters (Zarin 2015).
The title of the work, Ice Watch, can be understood in relation to the organization of the ice blocks in a circle, referencing a clock, and also in relation to the act of watching the ice melt. The rate of melting varies depending on weather conditions, the ice blocks transform until nothing but melted water remains.
The public, large-scale work was accessible to anyone passing by to encounter it for free. People could not only view the blocks of ice from outside the circle, but also enter it and encounter the ice from all angles. The artwork could be experienced with all senses. For instance, spectators could watch the ice, touch it, or listen to the sounds made by bubbles contained in the ice.
Existing coverage and artwork analysis
Impact of climate change – and of the art itself
Ice Watch is, as described on Eliasson’s website a ‘testimony of the dramatic effects of climate change’ (Olafur Eliasson n.d. b: Spread From Ice Watch section, para. 1). The artwork fits within the first movement of climaterelated art (discussed by Galafassi et al. (2018)) as it aims to raise awareness of melting ice – a topic that had not received as much attention in the 2010s as nowadays. It also has characteristics of co-creation but, according to some, less so of imagining plural futures. The work (along with other artistic works that focus on glaciers, such as Diane Burko’s) uses, according to Jackson (2015), a glacier-ruins narrative. Such works have been criticized for foreclosing diverse futures by normalizing a world without glaciers instead of imagining a broad range of possible futures, including a future in which glaciers may still exist.
Melting ice is indeed among the dominant motifs in climate-related art and other issues have received less attention (timeframe 2000-2016, Galafassi et al. 2018). While glaciers are a symbol of climate change, there are certainly many other ways of portraying climate-related matters. The arts in particular seem capable of imagining a wide range of possible futures and worlds. It should be noted, however, that both Eliasson and Burko address various other topics beyond melting ice in their art. Moreover, one of the roles of the arts is to document or visualise the impacts of climate change, some of which are happening right now on the planet. What remains important is paying attention to power relations, people and politics, inhabitants and their voices (Yusoff and Gabrys 2011).
The next point of analysis now turns to the environmental impact of the work itself. In particular, the transport of the ice blocks from Greenland to European cities has been criticized in the press as observed by the organization Julie’s Bicycle (2019). The tenor of some of these press reports is: Practice what you preach. Together with the NGO Julie’s Bicycle, Studio Olafur Eliasson has investigated ‘the impact art making can have on the environment’ (Bottrill et al. 2021: 23). According to their assessment, Ice Watch London has resulted in 55 tonnes of CO₂e,[2] most of which is caused by the freight (movement of the artwork). This equals ‘52 people flying return from London to witness the icebergs melting’ (Bottrill et al. 2021: 23). This insinuates that it is, environmentally speaking, much better to have the icebergs come to the people in Europe, instead of having thousands of people fly out to see them melt on-location. Eliasson’s work was strategically shown during IPCC and COP meetings. Thus, one can compare the effect of the work on people and its environmental costs (CO₂), and some may argue that the effect is worth the costs.
The ice parliament and COP meetings
The installation itself does not contain any explicit activist or political message. In fact, one can enjoy it without knowing its intended meaning. But implicitly the message is ‘that the source of the ice, the parent glaciers in Greenland, were also declining due to climate change’ (Jackson 2015: 484). Rosing explains that the amount of ice that was installed in the
Copenhagen edition (100 tonnes) ‘is equal to what melts every 1/100 of a second’ in the Greenland icesheet (Underground Channel 2014). In addition, the timing and locations of the installation makes its activist claim clear: the first edition in Copenhagen coincided with the publication of an IPCC report, the second edition was installed in Paris in 2015 where COP21 took place (Hornby 2017), and the third edition was installed in 2018 in London during the same time as COP24 was held in Katowice (Julie’s Bicycle 2019; Ice Watch London n.d.). In
Copenhagen, the installation was located in front of City Hall, in Paris in front of the Pantheon (which is the resting place of many famous people who had a large impact on French society) and in London in front of Bloomberg’s European headquarters (Bloomberg Philanthropies supported the work).
Eliasson has also made explicit, in interviews and on the websites about Ice Watch, that he hopes to create engagement in the form of climate action (Ice Watch London n.d.). For him, the ice bears resemblance to an ice parliament, in which agreements need to be made (Olafur Eliasson n.d. a). The artist’s call for climate action, moreover, underlines that he is interested in changing the status quo. While Ice Watch does not offer solutions as part of its immediate experience, it does provide resources separate from the artwork (Ice Watch London n.d.). This activism that takes place aside from the work is comparable to Burko’s approach.
The artwork is the space that the circle of ice invents
Olafur Eliasson (born 1967) and Minik Rosing (1957) both describe the melting of the ice sheets of Greenland as an abstract phenomenon because it occurs in remote locations and is rarely directly observed (Olafur Eliasson n.d. a). Moreover, as Eliasson points out, the climate debate (e.g. at the COP meetings) and scientific data are also abstract (UN Climate Change 2015). Ice Watch is said to turn this abstract phenomenon into a ‘personal and up-close experience’ (Roosen, Klöckner and Swim 2017: 17). Ice Watch is an immersive and participatory work (Hornby 2017) because it is ‘a direct and tangible experience of the reality of melting arctic ice’ (Olafur Eliasson, n.d. a: Information section, para. 1), and because it allows spectators to take part in it. Eliasson stated that he does not consider the circle of ice blocks as the artwork. Instead ‘it is the space it invents’ (Zarin 2015: para. 2). Thus, the work depends not only on the weather conditions but also on the space and the person(s) participating in it.
The ice blocks seem alienated when lying in the streets of these three major European cities and are usually not experienced at that scale by populations of European countries. Yet, by melting, they become part of the cities. People can experience the ice installation on several levels, with or without necessarily knowing the implicit message. There may be an urgency felt because of the elements of the artwork (the ice, the clock like a countdown or ultimatum): we are ‘at the eleventh hour’ regarding climate change or action. But people may also engage with the blocks without thinking about climate change. In time-lapses of the ice installation, a range of people can be seen engaging with the work. Expressions of laughter, excitement, awe, contemplation and reflection can be observed in peoples’ faces.[3] Some touch the ice, some hug it, some listen to its sounds, some engage with it alone, others in interaction with fellow spectators. Perhaps there is an empathy for the melting ice blocks but also an empathy for the aesthetics, as they are disappearing. Through this documentation of the work online, there is also a representational part to the experiential installation and even people who have not experienced the work on site may be able to imagine how it must be to experience the ice blocks. A study by Sommer and Klöckner (2021) investigated the perception of 37 artworks, including Ice Watch, at ArtCOP21 in Paris in 2015 (total number of questionnaire respondents: 874, number of respondents for Ice Watch: 33). Based on the responses and a cluster analysis, Ice Watch was assigned to the cluster labelled by the researchers as the challenging dystopia: art that portrays dystopian scenarios in a dark sublime. Further perception studies with audiences who have experienced Ice Watch are needed to assess what they think about the work, if they feel the urgency for climate action, or if they perceive the work as foreclosing the future.
Jason deCaires Taylor: Vicissitudes (2006)
Description of the artwork
Vicissitudes is a permanent site-specific underwater sculpture located at 5 meters depth off the coast of Grenada by Jason deCaires Taylor (born 1974), a British sculptor with Guyanese roots. Twenty-six life-sized figures of people stand in a circle, outward facing, and holding hands (work).
The sculpture is made of pH neutral cement material, which does not contain harmful chemicals, is low carbon and long-lasting (Underwater Sculpture n.d. a). This material turns the sculpture into an artificial reef, encouraging the growth of marine life to continuously transform the artwork.
In earlier images of the work, the sculpted figures of children are more easily discernible. Their facial features, closed eyes, modern clothing, and bare feet are clearly visible. Initially the sculpture was a grey colour, unlike the later brown, purple and pink colouring due to marine growth. Additionally, the figures are duplicates; there are fourteen and twelve identical children.
Vicissitudes is part of 75 works of Taylor’s Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park[4] in the Molinere Beauséjour Marine Protected Area, off the west coast of Grenada, an island in the Caribbean Sea. This underwater sculpture park was installed in 2006 and is seen as the first of its kind (Underwater Sculpture n.d. b). In the Molinere Bay, Hurricane Ivan led to significant damage in 2004 and further intensified problems of this ecosystem. Therefore, according to Taylor, the underwater sculptures offered a new foundation for the growth of marine life (Underwater Sculpture n.d. b). The sculptures are located at depths ranging from five to eight meters, and can be reached by ‘scuba diving, snorkelling and glass bottom boats’ (Underwater Sculpture n.d. b: para. 3). The park is promoted through the artist website, social media (with a substantial followership), tourism sites, and experience reports.
Existing coverage and artwork analysis
Impacts and causes
Vicissitudes, and other sculptures by Taylor, address consequences of climate change like ocean acidification, species decline and habitat loss. These issues have been underrepresented topics in climate-related art (timeframe 2000-2016, Galafassi et al. 2018). Additionally, the artist also addresses the causes of degradation, such as tourism flows. In contrast to Ice Watch, for which mostly a negative environmental impact was assessed in the media and the generated impact report, Taylor uses a positive impact logic.
It could be argued that Taylor’s works are not merely attempting local, cosmetic fixes. When considering matters around his many underwater sculptures and parks, they could be seen as developing a systems ecology, linking environmental, economic, social, cultural and political systems. For example, in addition to the growth of marine life, the Underwater Sculpture Park influences tourism flows by redirecting divers and snorkelers to the sculpture park and thereby it aims at preventing crowding at nearby fragile reefs (Underwater Sculpturen.d. b). Marine scientists are studying the ecosystem development. Moreover, the park has had influence on political decisions, as it ‘was instrumental in the government designating the area as a Marine Protected Area. Entrance fees to the park now help fund park rangers to manage tourism and fishing quotas’ (Underwater Sculpture n.d. b: para. 5). In addition, Taylor created numerous sculptures, underwater museums and sculpture parks in various locations across the entire globe (in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and Caribbean Sea) and entered collaborations with local communities. This co-creation with various parties situates Taylor’s work in the second movement of the climate-related art framework of Galafassi et al. (2018).
Each year, over 500,000 people visit the artist’s underwater museums and sculpture parks (Underwater Sculpture n.d. c). Given the popularity of the works, new questions may arise about how to manage the tourism flows to the artwork while diverting them away from fragile reefs. A comparison of the environmental impacts of Taylor’s and Eliasson’s public, large-scale installations could provide valuable insights, considering the scale and effort required to organize them. However, not enough data on factors contributing to CO2, such as visitor travel and artwork transport, could be found to make this comparison.
The desire for a healthy environment is a human right
Taylor prefers to think about the desire for a healthy environment as a human right instead of as activism (deCaires Taylor 2021). Like Ice Watch, Vicissitudes can be experienced without necessarily knowing its meaning. The work may also be interpreted in various ways given its ongoing transformation and because spectators might understand it differently.
On the artist’s website, Vicissitudes is described as ‘a symbol of unity and resilience’ (Underwater Sculpture n.d. b: para. 6). Its title ‘reflects the changing conditions of the planet’ (Underwater Sculpture n.d. a: The Human Face of Marine Ecologies section, para. 3). In general, Taylor’s works aim to convey ‘a message of regeneration and hope’ when the underwater world is threatened through climate change, overfishing, tourism and pollution (Underwater Sculpture n.d. c: para. 3). Like Ice Watch, Vicissitudes displays a circular form, viewed from above by divers or in photographs (DeLoughrey 2017). While in Ice Watch the circle stood for a countdown, ultimatum or an ice parliament, here the circle shape can be seen as a ring of resilience.
Others, such as the local communities, have interpreted Vicissitudes as an homage to the fallen slaves because of the work’s proximity to the route of the slave ships from West Africa to the Americas through the Middle Passage. The sculpture’s structural supports have been taken to portray shackles (DeLoughrey 2017; van der Scheer 2021). Researchers, such as van der Scheer (2021), offer a reading of Vicissitudes in relation to colonialism and slavery, while referring to the threat of climate change for coral reefs. Thus, multiple interpretations of the work are possible. Taylor’s sculpture seems to offer a ‘plurality of meanings’, ‘spaces of possibility’, and ‘narratives of hope’ – and these are seen to be important features of climate related art (Galafassi et al. 2018: 77).
Submarine restorationist aesthetics
In contrast to Ice Watch, Vicissitudes and other underwater sculptures by Taylor are intended to contribute to the repair of degraded ecosystems, and thus can be seen as examples of what Demos (2016) termed restorationist aesthetics. While for Eliasson the real work of art was the space that the circle of ice invents for the people, for Taylor the real artist is the marine life: ‘The marine life is much more beautiful than anything I create. It’s much more intricate, much more vibrant. And that is the real artist. I’m just providing the platform for it’ (deCaires Taylor 2021). Still, the human form in his sculpture suggests their significance. Even though marine life plays a large role in their formation, they are partially created by humans for humans to encounter underwater. For example, journalist Connor McGovern (2022) describes the experience of personally encountering the statues underwater guided by a diver from a dive and snorkel company: There is ‘a busy wonderland of marine life’ (para. 6) and ‘an eerie, ghostly quality to the statues in the way they slowly fade in and out of view like apparitions’ (para. 4). ‘Perhaps most haunting of all, however, is Vicissitudes: a ring of life-like children, hand in hand, looking out from the circle, their eyes closed — a representation of unity in adversity, perhaps’ (para. 4).
DeLoughrey (2017: 37)describes the underwater sculpture’s ‘submarine aesthetics’, which ‘are subject to an “alien” environment: transformed by salt, currents, pressure, and the rapid occupation by multispecies ecologies’. Like the ice blocks of Ice Watch, which were alien to the streets of major European cities and then disappeared through melting, the Vicissitudes sculpture initially appears strange in this underwater world, before gradually changing. In Ice Watch, the ice disappears, here marine life grows. Over time, it will become increasingly difficult to identify what is part of the cement sculpture and what is marine life as they merge into one. The sculpture will become indistinguishable from the reefs. A divide into environment, the ocean, the marine life on the one hand (nature), and sculpture (which can be seen as a symbol of culture), on the other, will no longer apply. Nature becomes inseparable from culture, and naturecultures emerge.[5] The sculpture (and perhaps a kind of human centring) will be transformed by the underwater world into something more-than human (van der Scheer 2021).
The artist situated the sculpture at shallow depths enabling a limited public to view them, like snorkelers and glass boat passengers. However, more people will likely encounter the sculpture represented in photography. Thus, while being an experiential work, the representation through images plays a significant role similar to Ice Watch.
Conclusion and discussion
This chapter asked: How do visual climate-related artworks employ aesthetics and engage with politics and structural causes of the climate crisis? First, some works focus on both the structural causes and the consequences by representing systems (particularly Biemann) and developing a systems ecology (especially Taylor when the cultural, economic, political and environmental systems and relations around his many sculptures are considered). Others primarily visualize the impacts of the climate crisis (Eliasson and Rosing), but also to some extent merge impacts with the causes (Burko). Impact in these artworks has two important meanings: the climate effects they address and the footprint of the work itself. While transport of works and visitor travel associated with large-scale installations like Ice Watch are discussed as major contributors to CO₂e in the visual arts (Bottrill et al. 2021), other aspects are still neglected, including the digital impact of online art presentations. More transparency and research are also needed across all art forms, for example video art, and AI art, which involves substantial server use. In addition, all arts practices, and particularly large cultural institutions and fairs, whether climate-focused or not, should consider their environmental and social responsibilities. The necessity to include this so-called ‘sustainability in the arts’ aspect (a term used and described by Power 2021) in the discussion of art has been expressed by numerous scholars and practitioners in recent years.
Second, particularly Biemann’s work can be seen as part of a political ecology approach. She pays attention to power relations and people, and focuses particularly on the politics of environmental justice. Biemann’s and Burko’s work are clearly addressing climate change through their climate-related videographic storyline and representation. In contrast, the work of Eliasson and Rosing, as well as Taylor, can be experienced without necessarily knowing the underlying climate messages – namely, that arctic ice is melting and urgent climate action is needed (Eliasson and Rosing), and that the marine world is threatened but regeneration is possible (Taylor). When considering the timing, location, and explanations about the works, their activist function becomes clearer. Especially Ice Watch coinciding with COP and IPCC meetings can be seen as climate activism. Although the four artworks do not contain explicit activist calls, activism is openly voiced on the artists’ websites (Burko, Eliasson, Taylor), through public engagement (Burko), and through their affiliation with collectives engaged in activist work (Biemann). While their artistic and activist activities may overlap, the borders are not always clear-cut or clearly distinguishable.
Third, the aesthetic emphasis of the artworks spans a diverse range, each employing aspects of the sublime to engage with the climate crisis: the industrial sublime in Biemann’s video essay, Burko’s referential abstract sublime, thedark sublime of melting arctic ice in Ice Watch, and the natural sublime in and around Taylor’s underwater sculpture. The beauty of nature can be seen as the basis of all works, even if to different degrees. Furthermore, an aesthetics of sustainability (Kagan 2011), in the sense of a sensibility to complexity and sensibility to connected patterns, can be particularly experienced in Biemann’s representational work.
Different audiences will engage with these works in their own way, influenced by their individual presuppositions and interests. Some may prefer the referential abstract sublime aesthetics of Diane Burko. Others will be interested in Ursula Biemann’s research-oriented ecorealism. Yet others participate in the experiential works of Eliasson and Rosing or Taylor, or view their representations online. The artwork analysis reveals that the distinction between representational and experiential works blur as experiential works like those of Eliasson and Taylor are documented through photography and video and shared across news outlets and social media platforms.
[1] Many more aspects would be relevant to consider but the analysis needs to be limited to a select few to keep it feasible.
[2] CO₂e refers to carbon dioxide equivalent.
[3] See the photos and videos on the artist’s website (Olafur Eliasson n.d. a).
[4] One of Taylor’s many underwater sculpture parks and museums.
[5] Donna Haraway, after Bruno Latour, has coined the term naturecultures (Neimanis et al. 2015).
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