eline d. tabak

The Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria, had a special exhibition on glaciers named: DAHINSCHMELZEN. Gletscher als Zeugen des Klimawandels (or MELTDOWN), created by the climate change charity Project Pressure.

My partner and I happened to be in Vienna when this exhibition just opened, and I just had to go. We both really enjoyed the set-up and the visuals. How can something so catastrophic be so aesthetically pleasing? I found Noémi Goudal’s work in particular very beautiful.

One thing that struck me was the discrepancy (for the lack of a better word) between… artist/observer and the subject of the works of art. Most of the artists were born in either West Europe or North America, and the places and people shown were elsewhere. For me, this exhibition mostly raised one (or a set of related) question(s): who gets the tell these stories? Whose voices are we hearing? According to a website, Project Pressure’s mission is (amongst other things), “to depict first-hand the environmental impact of climate change”. But is it, really?