Global Warming II, 2021

Britta Marakatt-Labba

Britta Marakatt-Labba: The way I have worked with this image is by cutting out different shapes so that it is possible to see that something is happening behind it. The image is about global warming and how the ice caps are melting and starting to crack, bit by bit. If you look at the round circle, you will see I have placed a typical mining profile, that one often sees with its familiar terraced step-like shape and emerging from that, are the drill holes.
 
In the middle, we have these women who are really trying their very best to resist what is happening today. It’s all very square. Square thinking, short-term thinking, and that’s why I made this square part. At the very bottom, you can see many red dots, which symbolise that things are starting to happen very quickly now. You can sense that the permafrost is beginning to melt, and there are bubbles that are starting to rise up. In my fantasy world, these bubbles are red because I often think about what’s happening beneath our feet. It is bubbling all the time. It is bubbling faster now because everything is moving so much faster.

You can see that in the circle too, with all those dark blue dots showing that a lot is going on here. It’s cracking and it’s melting. And we feel it in our region as well, because the cracking has happened so quickly, and the ice is melting much faster than ever before.