The exhibition Ice Edge by Jacob Kirkegaard reflects on ice as a phenomenon, as a material and as an image of the way our planet and our world are changing.
In the work MELT, we hear the sound of ice going from solid to liquid state. Composed from sound recordings made in the Arctic regions, we encounter the sounds of the landscape – from squeaking ice caps and rippling waters to
ice shelves collapsing into the sea. Here, our conceptions of ice come up against the actual sounds of nature. As an explorer – with microphone in hand – Kirkegaard creates a counter-narrative to traditional notions of the white silence in the quiet North.
The work Some say the world will end in fire reflects on the linguistic and cultural implications of the forces of nature in the Anthropocene Epoch. In a soft whisper, Nordic words and expressions used to describe ice and snow are spoken, but slowly losing their meaning because the world that they embodied is gradually vanishing.
At a time, where nature is no longer a counterpart to civilization and culture but rather a sign of our presence on earth, the exhibition brings us closer to a phenomenon we hear a lot about but rarely listen to. Ice Edge reminds us of the consequences of global warming for the shared planetary life of humans and nature, with the bunkers serving for a little while as time pockets for words and phenomena that might disappear within a few decades.
