STAGE 1
LATENT
The Calm Before The Storm
by Ze Ze Lai
2014
Watercolour on Paper
38 x 56 cm
This piece is the very definition of the latent stage, which I would describe as the calm before the storm. The dark, greenish-yellow of the sky is ominous and indicates more to come - a storm, or something else equally or more devastating. It creates a sense of warning and foreboding. However, the birds remain there calmly. This gives the impression of being unaware of or apathetic to the storm about to break, which is what I define the latent stage as - something is wrong, and the conditions for a conflict are there, but they have not been realised and the conflict therefore has not happened. It is interesting to think about how often you have been in their position, without realising it, is it not?
Ice Watch
by Olafur Eliasson
2014
Ice Watch is a piece done by Olafur Eliasson, an artist from Greenland. It involved the transportation of blocks of ice from Greenland. These blocks of ice were arranged in a circle to represent the passing of time, and then left to melt. This piece brings an uneasy sort of attention of the rising temperatures on Earth - it does not bring light to the causes of our climate change, nor even that our climate is changing. However, we know that something not quite right. Ice Watch opens the senses of the viewer to the melting ice, a startling reality that might not have been quite realised before (Yalcinkaya, 2018). This piece only shows that there are pre-existing conditions that have led the world's condition to where it is now. Does it make you wonder how we came to this point? This piece offers an opening to a knowledge of climate change, or as the artist himself describes it, "an immediate experience of the reality of climate change" (Paddison, 2018). This marks the start of a slippery slope - much like the latent stage of a confrontation. This is also an example of a confrontation people choose to run from - the uncomfortable knowledge that we are destroying our world, and not doing anything about it.
References
Asia Contemporary Art (2017). The calm before the storm. Retrieved from https://www.asiacontemporaryart.com/artists/artwork/TheCalmBeforeTheStor/en/
Bruisesblog (n.d.). Picture of a bruised hand found on Tumblr. Retrieved from https://bruisesblog.tumblr.com/post/62018642950
Paddison, L. (2018, Sept 24). 8 artists taking on the big global challenge: Climate change. Huffpost. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/artists-take-on-climate-change_n_5ba25163e4b04d32ebfea0d4
Yalcinkaya, G. (2018, Dec 12). Olafur Eliasson installs giant blocks of glacial ice around London. Dezeen. Retrieved from https://www.dezeen.com/2018/12/12/ice-watch-olafur-eliasson-installation/