Watching the glacier disappear

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The decent­ral­ised exhib­i­tion Watch­ing the Glacier Disap­pear adopts artists’ point of view on the disap­pear­ance of glaciers. It brings together a wide range of part­ners, invit­ing them to consider the processes that are under­way with the help of artists who, through the ages and in a vari­ety of ways, have expressed the complex rela­tion­ship between humans and their envir­on­ment. The inev­it­able end of the glaciers could herald a new begin­ning: learn­ing to listen to and feel the world again, and trying to occupy a more sens­it­ive, humble, just, and peace­ful place in it as human beings.

Glacier melt­ing in Switzer­land as a result of global warm­ing is having a number of consequences for the envir­on­ment, the economy and local communit­ies. As well as increas­ing the risk of avalanches and other natural disasters, shrink­ing glaciers are redu­cing fresh­wa­ter reserves, affect­ing water supplies, agri­cul­ture, and hydro­elec­tric power gener­a­tion. Swiss alpine tour­ism is also being affected, with the gradual disap­pear­ance of glaciers threat­en­ing the income of moun­tain regions.

The Swiss govern­ment has set itself the goal of achiev­ing carbon neut­ral­ity by 2050 and is devel­op­ing scientific research to better under­stand glacier melt­ing and develop adapt­a­tion strategies. However, despite these efforts, glacier melt­ing remains a major chal­lenge requir­ing global action to limit global warm­ing and mitig­ate its impacts.

Contem­por­ary artists are using their work to raise public aware­ness of this envir­on­mental crisis, as demon­strated by the works that mudac has chosen to feature in this exhib­i­tion.

For example, Sandrine Pelleti­er’s Tarabeiza (2017) depicts fragile moun­tains of ice, while Anaïs Dunn’s Tension Pays­age (2021) evokes the trans­form­a­tion of glaciers into icebergs. Finally, Patrik Graf’s How I sought prox­im­ity in solitude (2020–2022) uses thawed perma­frost to symbol­ise current or future envir­on­mental change.

By combin­ing differ­ent forms of creation with the issue of melt­ing glaciers, these artists are encour­aging us to think and act in favour of preserving our envir­on­ment. The Ephem­eral Etern­ity exhib­i­tion is there­fore fully in line with mudac’s belief in the abil­ity of design­ers to gener­ate new ways of ques­tion­ing and being in the world.

Photo Elysée is taking part in the Watch­ing the glacier disap­pear project, present­ing eight photo­graphs from its collec­tion – in XXL format – during the Nuit des images event on June 22.

From June 29 to Septem­ber 29, the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne is also taking part in Watch­ing the glacier disap­pear. The MCBA is taking part in this project by installing a work by the artist Katie Pater­son (*1981), Langjökull, Snæfell­s­jökull, Solheima­jökull (2007), in the perman­ent exhib­i­tion of The collec­tion, in dialogue with Le glacier du Rosen­laui (1841), a romantic paint­ing by the Genevan artist François Diday (1802– 1877).