Ice Cave, Vatnajökull, 2014. © Richard Mosse

MELTDOWN featured in The Guardian with a selection of artworks from the entire exhibition at The Natural History Museum in Vienna. The show is open until the 1st of September.

Glaciér 1-3, 2016. © Noémie Goudal

Our exhibition MELTDOWN visualizing climate change at the Natural History Museum, Vienna, is now officially open. We couldn’t think of a better place to launch Project Pressure’s travelling exhibition with artworks by Corey Arnold, Michael Benson, Broomberg & Chanarin, Edward Burtynsky, Scott Conarroe, Peter Funch, Noémie Goudal, Adam Hinton, Richard Mosse, Simon Norfolk, Norfolk + Thymann, Christopher Parsons, Toby Smith and Klaus Thymann.

Opening hours and information about how to get there here.

MELTDOWN – a visualization of climate change by Project Pressure

Natural History Museum, Vienna
June 4th –  September 8th, 2019

Since 2008 Project Pressure has been commissioning world-renowned artists to conduct expeditions around the world, and for the first time these works will be shown together as MELTDOWN, a travelling exhibition premiering at the Natural History Museum, Vienna.
Project Pressure uses art as a positive touch point to inspire engagement and behavioural change. The selected artworks in MELTDOWN relate to vanishing glaciers, to demonstrate the impact of climate change through various media. Unlike wildfires, flooding and other weather events, glacier mass loss can be 100% attributed to global temperature changes and as such, they are key indicators of climate change.
The exhibition is a narrative of the importance of glaciers told in a scientific, illustrative and poetic way and each artist has a unique take on the subject. MELTDOWN shows scale from the planetary level to microscopic biological impact, and considers humanitarian suffering and more. Together the artistic interpretations in MELTDOWN give visitors unique insights into the world’s cryosphere, its fragile ecosystem and our changing global climate.
Featured artists are: Corey Arnold (US), Michael Benson (US), Adam Broomberg (ZA) & Oliver Chanarin (UK), Edward Burtynsky (CA), Scott Conarroe (CA), Peter Funch (DK), Noémie Goudal (FR), Adam Hinton (UK), Richard Mosse (IE), Simon Norfolk (NG), Christopher Parsons (UK), Toby Smith (UK) and Klaus Thymann (DK).
The second stop for our travelling show will be Horniman Museum and Gardens, London, opening the 23rd of November. More information to follow.

World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) is currently in the process of adding to the Glacier Photo Collection, hosted by National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in USA. This is to ensure that the information and imagery of glaciers, that form the WGMS Fluctuations of Glaciers (FoG) database, are better represented. Currently there are several locations where WGMS’s photos are of poor quality or the glaciers of particular significance have limited documentation, these include Russia, Norway, Canada, Svalbard, Switzerland, Greenland, New Zealand, the USA, and Austria, amongst others. Thus we are inviting any individual with relevant glacial photographs to please share them with us, here you will find a list of all the glaciers WGMS are interested in gathering photographs of and use these instructions to upload your imagery.

The glaciers in Ecuador are receding due to climate change. We look at mountains and panoramas and we assume our surroundings are immutable and resilient, when we are in fact experiencing a rapid change in Earth’s landscapes.
Project Pressure is collaborating with Emma Stibbon to see how she as an artist creates work inspired by the changing environment. With the glaciated sites in Ecuador Stibbon felt she wanted to say something about the extraordinary scenery but also point to the poignancy of the fact that the changes in the landscape will be witnessed within her own lifetime.
The team travelled to Ecuador visiting multiple glaciers at high altitudes up to 5100 m where Stibbon created sketches and collected soil that was used to make pigment for the drawings she created in her studio upon returning.
The “A Blank Canvas” project was made possible through a collaboration with Adidas TERREX.

Project Pressure developed a new way of visualising the changes in glacier landscapes through photography in collaboration with Dutch film company PostPanic and geologist Erik Schytt Holmlund.
By sourcing images from 1946, 1959, 1980, 2008 and 2017 of the Tarfala Valley and the Kebnekaise mountain in Sweden, the team created 3D models of these landscapes through photogrammetry. Throughout the video, viewers can see the landscape fade in and out with each year. As the video progresses into more recent times, the devastating impact humans continue to have on the melting glacier landscape is undeniable.
In 2018 the highest point in Sweden changed, excessive heat in 2018 melted the South peak of the Kebnekaise mountain so the North peak is now Sweden’s highest point.

Image: Thjorsa River, Iceland, 2012, © Edward Burtynsky/Project Pressure

“Ed Burtynsky explores the water storage and transport systems that can be found in glaciers, focusing on how they release water into the world’s river systems. The resulting images depict the beauty and monumental scale of the meltwater runoff. Burtynsky reminds us of what we are losing as glaciers continue to diminish across the globe.”
See the full gallery here.
When Records Melt exhibition with contributing artists Michael Benson (US), Adam Broomberg (ZA) & Oliver Chanarin (UK), Edward Burtynsky (CA), Peter Funch (DK), Noémie Goudal (FR), Simon Norfolk (NG), Christopher Parsons (UK) and Klaus Thymann (DK).

Review of Project Pressure’s exhibition When Records Melt in the New Scientist magazine.
“Visit the Rhône Glacier in southern Switzerland, and you are more than likely to wander past a small shop. It’s worth a visit: the owners have carved out an ice grotto, and charge tourists for the eerie and beautiful experience of exploring the inside of their glacier’s mass of blue ice.
Now, though, it’s melting. The grotto is such an important part of their livelihood, some years ago the owners invested 100,000 euros in a special thermal blanket. “It’s kept about 25 metres’ depth of ice from disappearing and has kept the grotto in business,” explains the photographer Simon Norfolk. But a few winters on the mountain have left the blanket in tatters.
“It’s the gesture that fascinates me,” says Norfolk. “There is something insane about trying to reverse the inevitable – a gesture as forlorn and doomed as the glacier itself.”
Norfolk and fellow photographer Klaus Thymann climbed up to the grotto just before dawn, armed with a light attached to a helium balloon that cast a sepulchral light over the scene. “I wanted to recreate the same light you get over a mortuary slab,” Norfolk says.
Emilia van Lynden, artistic director of Unseen Amsterdam, finds the effect as aesthetically chilling as it is beautiful. Of the whole series, called Shroud, she observes: “We’re seeing a glacier being wrapped and prepared for death.”
Deeper pleasures
“There’s next to no photo-journalism here,” van Lynden explains. “None of the images here expect you to take them at face value. They expect you to pay attention and figure things out for yourself. These are works into which you need to invest a little bit of time and effort, to see what the artist is trying to tell you.” ”
Read the full story here

When Records Melt
A Photographic Exploration Of The Cryosphere
21-23 September 2018

The launch of Project Pressure’s travelling exhibition When Records Melt takes place at Unseen Amsterdam the 21-23 of September. The exhibition features international artists that focus on raising awareness through a variety of photographic interpretations, depicting issues surrounding the global environment in a new and inspiring context. These artists utilise the unique characteristics of photography to engage emotions in order to incite positive behavioural change.
Featured artists are: Michael Benson (DE), Adam Broomberg (ZA) & Oliver Chanarin (UK), Edward Burtynsky (CA), Peter Funch (DK), Noémie Goudal (FR), Simon Norfolk (NG), Christopher Parsons (UK) and Klaus Thymann (DK).

Location
Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam

Opening Hours
Friday: 11.00 – 21.00
Saturday: 11.00 – 20.00
Sunday: 11.00 – 17.00

Please visit unseenamsterdam.com for more practical information.