04-04-2007 08:38
Artists from around the world are in southern Argentina for an exhibition on global warming. It's intended to complement the start of International Polar Year, a research project aimed at studying the effects of climate change on animals, people and the polar environment.
An lone metal sunflower stands atop a windswept hill in the world's southernmost city, Ushuaia, keeping a weather eye on any climate changes at this end of the earth.
With icebergs melting and sea levels rising, artists from both northern and southern hemispheres are installing or performing works that dissect the process of global warming.
One Argentine artist set up a series of portable heaters, glowing bright-orange as they melt nearby blocks of blue wax. He "drew" pictures of icebergs on the wall with blue cables, and ran them down toward the hot pools forming on the floor below.
Argentine artist Dantiel Trama said, "This is something beautiful which aims to seduce but also act as a warning because the landscape is generated by a source of energy that we humans created, but which also destroys its surroundings."
