I designed the five rings that fit together to form a miniature iceberg landscape in a three dimensional rendering program, and then had the rings 3D printed. The next step is to cast them, make molds, and experiement with materials. Icebergs are fragile and disappearing, so I was thinking of using a fragile material like porcelain. Or maybe, since one day they might be compeletly gone, perhaps I should immortalize them in something like gold or silver. The idea of bronzing something to freeze it in time, and remember it forever (like a baby’s shoes I guess) also seems interesting.  I’ll let you know how they turn out!

Danish artist Marco Evaristti took 780 gallons of red paint, three fire hoses and a 20-member crew  to Greenland in search of a blank canvas large enough to accommodate his creative impulse. The result is a blood-red iceberg now sitting off the country’s western coast. The work is part of his Trilogy series.

“Trilogy comprises three projects that deal with the themes of territories and states. Using fruit color and fabric, Evaristti coloured an ice cube in Greenland, areas of Mont Blanc and a sand dune in the Sahara, red. He then declared them all as his territory and named it ‘Pink State’. The work is a series of transient changes in nature, touching on issues of environmental pollution, territorial demands and political methods.”

Evaristti was arrested during the Mont Blanc painting.

I am by no means an expert in silkscreening (in fact, to be honest, this is my first attempt in years, and likely only my second or third attempt ever) so it was a bit of a learning process. I began with a “stencil”:After carefully applying the stencil to the screen (yes, for those of you looking carefully, that is obama in the background). Then, the lovely Annabelle helped me prepare the ink mixture and set up for my practice rounds of silkscreening.

My first two practice passes didn’t work out perfectly, but I decided to go for it on the tshirt the third time. This may have been a mistake. The actual silkscreening didn’t work out perfectly, which was a little disappointing, but I managed to fill in the parts that didn’t work with a paintbrush instead. The message is the same, the image is the same, it’s just the method that didn’t work as I had hoped. Oh well.

Here’s how it turned out:

Obviously, as soon as the ink dried I was eager to see how it would disappear. The results were also a little disappointing in that sense as well. The black ink I used faded to grey instead of disappearing. Others in the class who used the magenta ink eperienced more success in having desired aspects disappear with body temperature. If I were to do it again (with access to any colour of ink that would actually completely disappear) I would use a blue ink on a white shirt again. I think the blue reads better as icebergs than black, but hey, you make the most of what you have, right?I like the idea of secret messages being hidden within our clothing as we wear them throughout the day. Ideally, these icebergs would disappear completely and only the person wearing the shirt would know they were there once their body heat “melted” the icebergs. As a person gets dressed each morning, perhaps their clothing could contain reminders (one of climate change, for example) that they see as they pull it out of the closet or off the shelf. Perhaps our clothing could contain secret messages, quiet reminders, or images that are special to us that only we can see. Perhaps this serves no true “purpose” in the eyes of many. So what?

I found some interesting work from other artists and designers also hoping to instill reminders in others:

This eraser called Meltaine by Skeet Wang via Yanko Design gets smaller and dirtier, diminishing with use to remind us that dirty snow is a contributer to global warming. I’m not sure the user would actually connect the idea while using the eraser, but I am intrigued by the concept all the same.

The Global Warming rug contrasts the comfort and softness of a rug with a thorny problem that is specific to our time. Following the age-old tradition of using rugs as a means for communication and a cultural record, NEL is portraying global warming in a scene that invites us to reflect on our impact on today’s world.

At least that’s the intent.

This hot tub from the Pancea Project also addresses icebergs and global warming through design.

Pancea is an expandable and travelling artwork currently being developed by Michael Pinsky, Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich to function as a universal formula to cure social, economical and political problems. Pinsky, Walker & Bromwich search for artistic ‘solutions’ that simultaneously offer viewers/participants an aesthetic experience and a practical tool to improve life. Panacea strikes a fine balance between naive optimism and an ironic critique on society’s increasingly untenable expectations of artists as: maker of beautiful objects, social reformers, economic revitalisers and catalysts for all things good.

Artists Walker and Bromwich have projects which include inflatable landscapes that speak to our current environmental situation as well as our predicted future. The inflatable Iceberg (below), however, seems to be a project of a different mindset. Instead of mourning the loss of glaciers and icebergs, you can purchase this inflatable toy (for a small fortune) and play with your own!