Water (and art) take center stage at COP26
Global Water Futures artist-in-residence Gennadiy Ivanov presents his work at the Cryosphere Pavillion at COP26
By Laura McFarlan“When the truth hurts it’s more important to portray it” says artist Gennadiy Ivanov in his speech opening the Cold Regions Warming exhibit at COP26.
Global Water Futures artist-in-residence Gennadiy Ivanov and scientific collaborators Dr. John Pomeroy and Dr. Trevor Davies from the University of East Anglia attended COP26 this past week. They participated in panel discussions and gave keynote presentations at the Cryosphere Pavillion but they ended their first day with something rather special, an art and science exhibit.
“This is a unique approach to fusing art and science together to communicate the very difficult of the impacts of climate change on our water and our cryosphere systems” says GWF Director Dr. John Pomeroy in his opening remarks.
Cold Regions Warming is an art-science perspective on climate change threats to the vast high latitude and high-altitude cold regions of the world that provide freshwater to over half of humanity. Climate change causes increasing forest fire, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers, declining snow and ice cover, and more severe droughts and floods that are damaging the natural capital of the vast circumpolar and high mountain ecosystems and river basins that support our freshwater and oceans and therefore our lives, communities, wildlife, environment, and economies.
Based on Global Water Futures’ science and portraying the devastating impact of climate warming at research sites around the world, the art comprises pastels painted in the field, photographs, sound, music, videos, and large oils of how climate change and water impacts are measured, and what these impacts are on the cryosphere. Coupled with the art-science presentations, it is suffused with the ambition that we can still ameliorate the very worst which, otherwise, is coming.
The opening speeches for Cold Regions Warming exhibit are available online.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr_TPYUAyh13kVbQjzVKh0g
Gennadiy Ivanov work was also featured recently by the BBC