The glacier melt series 1999/2019

Date: 2019
Medium: 30 C-Prints
Dimension: 31 x 90.4 x 2.4 cm (framed, each) 226.6 x 478 x 3 cm (rectangular installation)
Credit: TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection; This artwork is part of the donation and long-term loan from TBA21 to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Details

In 1999, Olafur Eliasson photographed several dozen glaciers in Iceland as part of his ongoing project of surveying and mapping the island. This series of photographs formed a work called The glacier series. Twenty years later, he returned to Iceland to catalog the glaciers again. This new work, The glacier melt series 1999/2019, collates the thirty pairs of images from 1999 with those from 2019 to reveal the dramatic impact that global heating has already had on the planet and how it will affect future generations.

“In 1999 I traveled to Iceland to document a number of the country’s glaciers from the air. Back then, I thought of the glaciers as beyond human influence. [...] Twenty years later, I went back to photograph the same glaciers from the same angle and at the same distance. Flying over the glaciers again, I was shocked to see the difference. Of course, I know that global heating means melting ice and I expected the glaciers to have changed, but I simply could not imagine the extent of change. All have shrunk considerably, and some are even difficult to find again. Clearly this should not be the case, since glacial ice does not melt and reform each year, like sea ice. Once a glacier melts, it is gone. Forever. It was only in seeing the difference between then and now—a mere twenty years later— that I came to fully understand what is happening. The photos make the consequences of human actions on the environment vividly real. They make the consequences felt. [...] I hope that we have now reached a turning point. We have a responsibility toward future generations to protect our remaining glaciers and to halt the progress of global heating. Every glacier lost reflects our inaction. Every glacier saved will be a testament to the action taken in the face of the climate emergency. One day, instead of mourning the loss of more glaciers, we must be able to celebrate their survival.”

— Olafur Eliasson.

(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "Abundant Futures", C3A, Córdoba, 2022)