The Super-Sargasso Sea / The Iceberg Plastic Island
Norrtälje Museum + Konsthall and The Sculpture Festival Oxelösund, Sweden
The Super-Sargasso Sea. Derelicts, rubbish, old cargoes from inter-planetary wrecks; things cast out into what is called space by convulsions of other planets, things from the times of the Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons of Mars and Jupiter and Neptune; things raised by this earth´s cyclones: horses and barns and elephants and flies and do-does, moas, and pterodactyls…*
The Super-Sargasso sea is the dimension where lost things go, its existence was proposed by Charles Fort, author and researcher in abnormal phenomenon. It can be thought of as the spontaneous, abnormal teleporting of one object to another dimension. The real world Sargasso sea is situated at the center of what is commonly called the Bermuda Triangle, here is also where the 100km in diameter North Atlantic plastic garbage island is floating. By transforming trash that has been found in nature into something beautiful, glittering and seductive, where it is only at a closer look one realizes that it is in fact a mountain of trash, I wish to bring attention to and create discussion about global warming and the plastic pollution of our environment which is present in nature, from the large plastic islands floating in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to the garbage dump island outside Venice, Italy.
*Charles Fort, 1919/2016, The book of the damned, New York, NY, Penguin Random House LLC, s.106
Iceberg Right Ahead!
Migration Addicts – 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Iceberg, Right Ahead! part of the Migration Addicts exhibition at the 52nd Venice Biennale and installed at Campo Santo Stefano. The 8 meter inflated rubber iceberg moved as if breathing, the motion controlled by sound-input from recordings made under the water in the Venetian canals.
Iceberg like humans and animals also migrates, in the Atlantic it is called the IRD belt and about 90% of Canadian icebergs originates from Greenland; a 2-3 year long Migration. Even though iceberg migrations have not officially been linked to the effects of Global Warming, they are a reminder of it. In the past climate changes have triggered migrations such as the demis of the Vikings during the little ice age when Greenland cooled off making travel impossible to the Potato Famine in Ireland 175 years ago, partly induced by the climate. What migrations Global Warming will bring us in the future is still to be seen but raising the question in a city notoriously effected by rising sea levels seems appropriate, and for us in the art world a reminder to ponder on our own carbon footsteps in the wake of the ever increasing amount of art fairs and biennales we ship work to and fly to visit?
Otherwise it might be for us, just as it was for the captain of the Titanic when he finally heard the Lookout scream “Iceberg, Right Ahead!” too late to avoid disaster.
LOOKING AROUND Biennale Sideshows: The Viola Section By Richard Lacayo June 09, 2007 Share Save Read Later Email Print Share Follow @TIMECulture