Bigert & Bergström
[1] Their productions range through large-scale sculptures, installations, public portrayals, performance and film – often combined in multimedia works.
[2] These topics define the theme, as well as the practical creation of the works – often through high-tech solutions, scientific foundations and various experimental elements.
Their works are often intended to be experienced through multiple senses; many sculptures exude warmth, vibrations, light and sound, or can be set in motion and change.
The project's main area of inquiry embedded in climate ethics, while aiming to create a visual, physical and poetic experience in a clear and committed manner.
[5] Bigert & Bergström's geoengineering performance was an attempt, a futile symbolic gesture to counteract the glacier melting of Kebnekaise, the highest mountain in Sweden, which gradually losing its elevation.
"[7] The work is not only challenging our perception and senses, but also raises the question of whether perceiving artworks is influenced by the atmospheric or ambient shifts.
Bigert & Bergström's work was inspired by the Biosphere II, an utopian experiment of self-supporting ecosystem, launched in 1984 in the Sonora Desert (Tucson, Arizona, USA).
Inside, the audience could follow the artists' actions and relevance of various dioramas (melting ice-monoliths, mechanical greenhouse) through windows.
The social sculpture, BBQ Meteorite is a functioning outdoor grill, made for Kvarteret Ekdungen and commissioned by Tom Radway, Förvaltaren AB.
[11] Solar Egg, a fully functioning egg-shaped sauna, was commissioned by Riksbyggen and placed in Kiruna, northern Sweden.
[13] Den som passerar verket vid upprepade tillfällen kan lära sig att läsa av färgerna och få en föraning om morgondagens väder.
The sculptures, moulded out of recycled iron and weighing 300 kg each, represent the amount of carbon dioxide an average Swede emits over a 10-day period.
Since its debut, they have increasingly developed their characteristic forms of expression, combining facts and anecdotes with experiments, animations, sculptural installations and objects in what may be described as contemporary art documentaries.
A film about Bigert & Bergström's climate-related art, which for three decades has been inspired by research on the effects of climate on humanity and vice versa.
The tradition stems from ancient burial rituals, in which the deceased was served food on his deathbed to ensure that he would not come back to haunt the living as a hungry ghost.
