For almost 40 years, the duo Bigert & Bergström have artistically portrayed the climate crisis; tirelessly and varied in different techniques and formats. Large-scale climate chambers that simulate extreme weather have been followed by a utopian tornado catcher, a giant rescue blanket for Kebnekaise's melting glacier and the mammoth machine "Tipping point" with live actors. As a contrast, they presented a tiny sculpture last spring, a rough diamond with the same carbon content as now in a cubic meter of air. Highest rate ever.
Many, including me, are suffering from climate anxiety after yet another record-breaking summer, with devastating droughts, water shortages and fires, alternating with catastrophic downpours, floods and landslides. So environmental and climate art is needed, where Bigert & Bergström are pioneers and good at visualizing complex connections. All so that the audience will both intellectually and emotionally understand the seriousness. At the same time, the works are often laced with humor, and are also colorful and spectacular in terms of form.
Their latest project "Broken Greenhouse / Gestaltade klimatframtider" is now shown with a starting point outside the Accelerator at Stockholm University and continues in the adjacent Bergian garden (after previously being shown in Lund's botanical garden and Wasteland Skellefteå).
The initial 'point of reference' consists of a group of comfortable hammocks patterned with weather maps and meteorological signs, facing the first of five 'sculptural greenhouses'. The audience gets a map of the walking route in just over half an hour and a short description of the project, which was carried out in collaboration with climate scientists.
However, the starting point this time is, to say the least, difficult to understand, since the artist duo has chosen to interpret something as complicated and abstract as the UN's future scenarios for the year 2100. There are five possible so-called "Shared socioeconomic pathways", abbreviated SSP 1-5, where climate development is based on assumptions about changes in socioeconomic factors.
Hypothetical climate futures, then. In any case, most of us probably realize that it is burning in the knots to achieve a more sustainable development - the "green road" with a global warming in line with the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degrees. Which Bigert & Bergström stage in "The pipedream SSP1", a brilliant green and tube-shaped "greenhouse" that rotates one revolution during the day.
Here there is a bed, a dining table, a rib chair for exercise and a bar cabinet. Anyone who sleeps in bed falls out in the morning, while the door to the bar cupboard opens in the evening. The work illustrates a simple way of life and a circular approach. A bit silly but effective and a relatively positive future scenario.
Station two on the other side of the highway is an upside-down version of a symbolic red cabin. Inside, visitors can kneel near a champagne cooler and tinkling "ice cubes". The sound mat is affected by wind and heat data from Abisko, which in turn causes a recording of our national anthem to sway.
Here the level of abstraction increases. Don't ask me how to transfer and transform measurements in Abisko into art, current even in a line diagram on a pearl drapery in station three of the Bergian garden. This "line chart greenhouse" is the most effective of the series, with decorative graphs in different colors on the roof and a shimmering play of color and light inside the plastic walls.
Solid plastic materials are hardly environmentally friendly, and it is a depressing development that is illustrated by the climate data (temperature, humidity and CO2 content in a permafrost bog). The effect of global warming is strongest in the polar regions, in this scenario a temperature increase of several degrees.
Everything has collapsed in the fourth "greenhouse", with fire yellow walls, crushed concrete slabs on the floor and rusty rebar sticking up through holes in the ceiling. A scenario where there is minimal rain, the land is unusable and conflicts divide the population. An unstable center pillar with seating requires patrons to cooperate to achieve equilibrium.
Once back outside the Accelerator, the hike ends with the worst imaginable climate stress and a 5 degree temperature increase, represented by a bunker-shaped brown "greenhouse". A smelly engine hums at idle, the lights gasp, and the floor is covered in shredded rubber tires, a material nearly impossible to break down. In the catalogue, the artists point out that it is no coincidence that the UN calls this scenario "The Motorway".
I absolutely do not want to go in here, scared and slightly nauseous. But in the other "greenhouses" there are thankfully some hopeful details, which signal care, play and possible relaxation. The artists hope that the seeds of thought will sprout, the visitors will discuss with each other and also make suggestions on how the future can be influenced in a more positive direction.
Still, it is thought-provoking and engaging. But reading is required, at least of the background information found on signs outside each station. It is vital to understanding – for this is Bigert & Bergström's most difficult, darkest and most alarming climate artwork to date. Regardless of everything, in my opinion, they are doing a heroic job to try to stop the climate disaster by communicating and concretizing research through art.
As part of the exhibition, there will also be a research festival at the university on September 25–26, with guided conversation walks led by researchers and artists in dialogue about the climate challenges of the future.
For those who want more serious environmental art, a visit to the Art Academy is also recommended. By chance, I was there on the same day as at Accelerator and was deeply moved by the exhibition in Salarna. The artist Anders Rönnlund is a lesser-known name, but he too has worked for four decades with diverse works that touch on nature and social issues. Now he summarizes his artistry in a series of grand installations.
The title work "Oppression" in particular surprises me. The entrance room is completely changed – darkened, desolate and with light coming in only through narrow slits. I suffer from a physical and psychological sensation of being exposed. To that, Rönnlund adds a personal story about April 26, 1986; Chernobyl crashes, the wife is heavily pregnant and with the rain comes the radioactive fallout.
Even "Smudged Decisions" is a loaded installation, tall cages with shredded paper and barbed wire on top. The associations go to censorship and inaccessible, opaque decision-making processes.
Even more shocking is "Ode to a dead pond" in this era of mining battles. With hoses, microphones and cymbals above a dark water mirror, the artist depicts a memory from a village in Bergslagen, where remains from mining were reflected in the black water of the pond. Anders Rönnlund realized much later that the warp piles were leaking heavy metals and other toxins: "The romantic Swedish pond, completely dead".
