Red Snow – Ice in Motion

ART TALK –  15. November  at. 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. 
Jon Proppe art historian will lead discussions and exhibitors give visitors an insight into their work.
The event will be held in Icelandic.

 KONNECT- 19. Nov. 2015 at 17:00. Together we can make a change!
Konnect  –  a  Special Event at the RED SNOW exhibition. Konnect will host a session where students will present their art project ideas,  and a specialist in behaviour changes, Dr Ragna Benedikta Garðarsdóttir, Associate Professor of Psychology, will lead a discussion on how people can be encouraged to change their ways. The session will take place in the Black Box of the Nordic House, and you are welcome to join! It will be in English and is free of charge.

The event is arranged by the Nordic project KONNECT which links art students and environmental scientists to find ways to draw public attention to environmental threats.  In the project, scientists, artists and students come together in 4-day workshops arranged by The University of Iceland and Art Academies in each of the Nordic countries, resulting in a selection of art project ideas. The first workshop was held in Kolstaðir Iceland in September 2015.

Red Snow is a group of Nordic artists and scientists concerned about the effect of climate change and human activity on the environment and cultures of the Arctic countries. For the people living in these areas, climate change is no longer a future threat; we see and feel it happening all around us.

Bente Elisabeth Endresen
Magnús Pálsson
Ragnhildur Stefánsdóttir
Julia Pars
Kristín Reynisdóttir
Kristian Blak
Pauline Motzfeldt Lumholt
Þóra Ellen Þórhallsdóttir
Tine Lander Rasmussen
Helgi Björnsson
Monica Kristensen
Jón Proppé.

www.redsnow.dk

Glaciers in Greenland and Iceland are retreating at an ever-faster pace, changing the landscape and rivers. New and invasive species are found every year and they are altering the balance in our flora and fauna, even disrupting the ocean ecosystems on which our communities depend for their livelihood. Pollution is building up everywhere in the food chain and threatening our health and the health of our children.

For us the tipping point is no longer a future possibility: The tipping point is here and now.
There is no longer a question of why this is happening. These changes are caused by human activity, by the burning of fossil fuels, by the unsustainable mining of minerals that leave whole regions poisoned by pollution, and the frantic extraction of oil that not only contributes to global warming as the oil is burned but also threatens disaster when, inevitably, spills occur. The short-sighted pursuit of economic growth and ever-increasing profits is poisoning the planet and in the vulnerable arctic regions this has already caused irreversible changes.

We in the North must engage with these issues and we must tell the world what is happening in the Arctic if there is to be a hope of halting these changes before they reach a catastrophic level. Therefore we in the Red Snow group put together a new project.
ICE IN MOTION is an exhibition, workshop and performance programme, promoting dialog about climate change and what it means for the lives of people living in the North Atlantic.

The exhibition and events provide a setting for thinking about and discussing these issues: ice floes appear in large paintings on the wall; a sculpture shows a woman as a polar bear; old Nordic songs are heard: 8760 time-lapse photographs run on a large screen, showing the life of a glacier; a poster presents scientific information about Greenland in the last ice age; we hear myths and stories about the origin of the world and the changes it has seen; sounds of the sea are heard as we walk among sculptures of people half-immersed in water; hanging sculptures show the gradual shrinking of Icelandic glaciers. The group includes not only artists but also scientists who have been researching the changes taking place and are alarmed at the consequences.

Their research features in the exhibition alongside the art and we believe that art and science can come together to throw light on these issues and help clarify them and open up a discussion where everyone is invited to participate.

Red Snow wants to engage with people in the Nordic countries on the consequences of climate change. How are we affected by changes in the natural environment? What will this mean for our future? How will we adjust to these changes? We want to examine these issues through different means – science, art, music and traditional myth – to explore their impact on the people and communities of the North.

We believe that we all need to take part in this discussion and that everyone has something to offer, not only scientists and politicians. We want to use our exhibitions to provide a place for this discussion and engage communities in thinking about the problem. We in the North already see the effects of climate change in our surroundings and we must make our voices heard. Our journey began in Katuaq in Nuuk and the exhibition has now arrived in Denmark, later to travel to the Faroe Islands and Iceland.

Projektet Rød Sne – når klimaet bløder, støttes af Kulturkontakt Nord, Nordisk Kulturfond, Grønlands Selvstyre, Sermerqfonden, Nunafonden, Royal Arctic Line, Myndstef og Muggur samt af Kulturhuset Katuaq i Nuuk, Nordatlantens Brygge i København, Nordens Hus på Island og Nordens Hus på Færøerne.