What matters
On the sidelines of the annual Bruges ice sculpture
festival is (Ant)Arctic Matters
There's a feverish excitement at the entrance to
the grand marquee outside Bruges station as hundreds of punters
wait for the doors to open on this year's ice sculpture show,
featuring the lovable Ice Age movie characters. But I'm here to see
something with a little less commercial appeal.
Just the other side of the road is a series of non descript
white shipping containers placed in a circle. I'm led there by
world-renowned Flemish polar explorer Dixie Dansercoer, who's
chattering away eagerly about the show and how he hopes it'll bring
an important message about the fragility of our environment.
He's already told the throngs of guests, who have finally been
allowed to descend on the adjacent exhibition, to make sure they
come and have a peep inside these containers afterwards, adding
that it is "not too late" and it is "absolutely up to us to take
action - not for ourselves, but for our children" to save the
climate.
Meanwhile, he tells me how he was inspired during a
contemplative moment on a previous polar expedition to use art as a
call to action on climate change. "We never have time in our daily
lives to just sit and think. Only then is there maximum creativity.
When you see all the pristine snow, it forces you to respect nature
and Mother Earth."
But the message on climate change is already out there so much
so that people are despairing. "We are constantly bombarded with so
much information and worrying prognoses, that people are just
giving up," says Dansercoer. It was time to find a new way of
reaching out to the masses about the perils we face if we don't
take action.
Dansercoer commissioned a series of Flemish artists to make a
display in each of the containers to highlight the beauty of the
polar regions. "We want to reach the soul of people and touch them
in a significant way so they take one image, one sound, or one line
that makes them willing to change and do something."
The exhibition, dubbed (Ant)Arctic Matters, will move to
Brussels next year for the European Union Green Week before touring
Europe for five years, notably Eastern Europe, where, it's safe to
say, environmental action has yet to gain popular momentum. Next
port of call is Prague where I wonder out loud if Dansercoer will
meet hard-line climate sceptic president Vaclav Klaus. "In Belgium,
it's much easier," he admits wincingly.
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- Publications FEB: expertise au service des chefs d'entreprise -
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