ABISKO .- Images of Sensing the Arctic, the latest project from Bigert & Bergstrom have recently been presented. This remarkable land artwork is a joint venture between the artists and the Climate Impacts Research Centre in collaboration with Naturum Abisko and Swedish Tourist Association (STF), Abisko.

The recent reports about an increasingly warmer Arctic and how the melting ice and permafrost are intensifying global warming are shockingly impossible to ignore. Sensing the Arctic has been created to highlight this situation and research around it in the Arctic, the artists have now completed a land artwork on a thawing permafrost bog below STF's tourist station in Abisko. Based on their artistic practice of combining sculpture, technology, nature, weather, and climate, the project studies how to translate the processes of climate change into bodily experiences. Positioned at the interface of the boreal and the Arctic biomes, Abisko is a unique place to understand how climate change affects northern ecosystems and how it is linked to our global climate system.

As Bigert & Bergström describe, “the project aims to create a possible model of the climate processes’ complexity – a chimera representing the conditions inside a thawing mire outside Abisko – that captivates the viewer. Inspired by the Open Top Chambers, the small open greenhouses scientists use to simulate a warmer climate, we have developed our own sculptural versions that create a land art installation on the mire. This piece mimics the scientific experiment and develops it into experiential platforms that can induce alternative narrative structures to traditional scientific narratives. It is very inspiring to have the possibility to create this artwork that will likely generate new impulses and extend its tentacles into future artworks, in the hope of expanding artistic, scientific, and emotional perspectives on how the Arctic and our climate will change over the coming centuries.”

Sensing the Arctic was realized with the financial support of Kulturbryggan / The Swedish Arts Grant Committee. Stenvalls Trä AB, ESSVE, Cake, and Haglöfs sponsored parts of the production. The catalog accompanying the project has been realized with the support of the Längmanska Cultural Fund.

The artists owe special thanks to Keith Larson, Lo Fisher, Marit Sarri, Susanna Hjälte, Mats P. Björkman, Robert Björk, Anders Grudd, and Acandia.

Bigert & Bergstrom
Sensing the Arctic
August 17th - ongoing