Visit the Rh么ne Glacier in southern Switzerland, and you are more than likely to wander past a small shop. It鈥檚 worth a visit: the owners have carved out an ice grotto, and charge tourists for the eerie and beautiful experience of exploring the inside of their glacier鈥檚 mass of blue ice.
Now, though, it鈥檚 melting. The grotto is such an important part of their livelihood, some years ago the owners invested 100,000 euros in a special thermal blanket. 鈥淚t鈥檚 kept about 25 metres鈥� depth of ice from disappearing and has kept the grotto in business,鈥� explains the photographer . But a few winters on the mountain have left the blanket in tatters.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the gesture that fascinates me,鈥� says Norfolk. 鈥淭here is something insane about trying to reverse the inevitable 鈥� a gesture as forlorn and doomed as the glacier itself.鈥�
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Norfolk and fellow photographer climbed up to the grotto just before dawn, armed with a light attached to a helium balloon that cast a sepulchral light over the scene. 鈥淚 wanted to recreate the same light you get over a mortuary slab,鈥� Norfolk says.
Emilia van Lynden, artistic director of , finds the effect as aesthetically chilling as it is beautiful. Of the whole series, called Shroud, she observes: 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing a glacier being wrapped and prepared for death.鈥�
Deeper pleasures
鈥淭here鈥檚 next to no photo-journalism here,鈥� van Lynden explains. 鈥淣one of the images here expect you to take them at face value. They expect you to pay attention and figure things out for yourself. These are works into which you need to invest a little bit of time and effort, to see what the artist is trying to tell you.鈥�
On the face of it, then, the presence at Unseen of, Norfolk and Thymann鈥檚 campaigning environmental charity, seems odd. The whole point of the outfit, which has collaborated with the likes of NASA and the World Glacier Monitoring Service, is not just to get us to think about climate change, but to do something positive about it.
But art photography, Norfolk and Thymann believe, is a more effective communication tool than straightforward photo-journalism.
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[video_player id=鈥漼7LqCudv鈥� access_level=鈥漞veryone鈥漖
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Their point is eloquently made by this 24 hour time-lapse video, created听with听a thermal imaging camera. By revealing the heat-properties of the scene, Norfolk and Thymann underline the different temperatures in the ice-body versus the surrounding landscape听鈥� a key indicator of climate change.
鈥淚 believe artists often make the best social and environmental investigators,鈥� says van Lynden. 鈥淭he trouble with 鈥榮traight鈥� photography is it looks for stunning subjects and leaves you, well, stunned by them. Glaciers are magnificent in their natural form even as they鈥檙e melting away.鈥�
The series exhibited in Project Pressure鈥檚 show When Records Melt take a different approach.
Among van Lynden鈥檚 favourite works are photographs by , who is better known for photographic portraits of explorers and sports personalities. Parsons won Project Pressure鈥檚 open call, and was invited on an expedition to the Himalayas. He collaborated with scientists studying alterations in the microbial life around retreating glaciers, and his photographs, while full of dread, are also accurate records of how changing weather patterns are altering the course of life in these fragile environments.
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Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin also take an apparently left-field approach to glacier retreat that nonetheless packs a powerful emotional punch. 鈥淭heir work is literally a huge photograph of a bone that was found within the Rh么ne glacier,鈥� says van Lynden. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e looking at the glacier as a living archive that now is slowly unravelling. All this information, all this stored data, which has been locked in the ice for however many thousands of years, is being lost.鈥�
She is in no doubt that Project Pressure鈥檚 message is clear. If you鈥檙e not convinced by one series of photographs, says van Lynden, 鈥渢hen you have six other projects that showcase, each in its individual manner, the irreparable damage we have done to our planet.鈥�
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When Records Melt, at from 21 to 23 September
Video:听Rho虃ne Glacier, Switzerland, Timelapse, 漏听2018, Norfolk + Thymann
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