Ijsselbiënnale

Abstract

The world, our climate is changing and this is happening more drastically than we suspect. Men is fooling himself and only believes in the advantage of their proper economy and not in the advantage of human kind.

The Ijssel Biennial’s topic is climate change. 23 artists were asked to present their vision on the consequences of climate change on the river Ijssel.

Peter de Cupere uses an extreme scenario which shows that the water level rises in such a way that the Ijssel Valley gets flooded with sea water. This kills the existing biodiversity. Sweet water becomes salt water. He looks for an utopic way of surviving particular to that situation. He replaces the by then disappeared white ice capes at the North and South Pole by white salt capes, won from the ocean. He presents a white salt nature with plants, fruit, vegetable and flowers created out of salt. They each have their own scent and thus a proper identity. The 5 displayed Salt Flowers each have their own scent. Some do not smell that bad, sometimes even exaggeratedly fresh, others smell earthly and stink. The strength of the work does not solely lie in the visual accomplishment of the flowers, but also in the choice of scents.