The climate crisis is a complex challenge of pressing urgency. It is about facts, reports, numbers and diagrams, but also about emotions, existential angst and loss. The climate debate is ever intensifying, alarming reports and climate conferences following one after the other. To the individual, the question becomes if it is even possible to meet the challenges of the future without losing a hold on reality. How will the world’s population balance the natural resources of the Earth in the long run?

The title of this exhibition is taken from a concept coined in 2003 by the Australian eco-philosopher Glenn Albrecht. In his research, he investigates the relationship between environmental damage and declining mental health (grief) among those living near areas of change. Glenn Albrecht’s research has been used in interdisciplinary discussions as well as in films, literature and art. In the artwork Solastalgia, the Dutch artist Eline Kersten (b. 1994) has used this concept as a starting point for examining how people are affected by the closure of a limestone quarry in the Netherlands. The film shows the transformation from industrial area to nature reserve and voices of people affected in different ways are being heard. Eline Kersten shows the many different memories contained within one place and how grief and tales differ depending on whose perspective is considered.

What will the landscape of the future look like? Ella Tillema (b. 1983) and Nils Kreuger (1858 – 1930) both portray human relationships to nature. For Nils Kreuger nature was crucial, not just depicting it, but actively moving around it. At the turn of the last century cities were expanding, and many artists found a calling in showing an open and free landscape. Nils Kreuger’s paintings of the landscape on Öland in a style of national romanticism stands in contrast to Ella Tillema’s contemporary piece Imorgon blir det nog bra (röd) [Tomorrow will probably be fine (red)] (2016) and Peak (2020). Kreuger’s and Tillema’s painting is grand, beautiful, sombre, melancholic and powerful. One thing becomes abundantly clear – humanity’s inferiority to nature. We pale in comparison while at the same time being inseparable from it.

Another aspect of the climate question is its relationship to consumption, economics and the every day. Which way is the better one to choose? How do we achieve fair distribution? Is it possible to change our habits? In the film Min börda [My burden] (2017) the artist Niki Lindroth von Bahr (b. 1984) has created a modern fable of many layers. Fish, monkeys and mice play different characters in recognisable and emotionally charged situations. Among the settings are a long stay hotel, a supermarket and a hamburger restaurant. The tone is sorrowful yet amusing. Occasionally it is very lonely, a cry for help in an infinite universe. The characters seem trapped by their existence in a modern society that gives but also takes.

The film The Drowned World (2020) is less easily interpreted but carries references that go a long way back. The American artist Michael Wang (b. 1981) works with climate change, resource distribution and the global economy through film and installations. In The Drowned World the viewer sees animals and plants from the flora and fauna of the Carboniferous period, some 350 million years ago. The flow of images alternates between two narrative voices. One of the texts is from J.G. Ballard’s sci-fi novel The Drowned World (1962), a literary piece which predicted a future climate collapse. Michael Wang’s film starts with a dragonfly, one of the oldest among living insects which dates back to the Carboniferous period. Poetically, the film reflects over the meaning of time and gives a vertiginous perspective on the history of the Earth.

Catrin Andersson (b. 1974) breaks down details from scientific research, visualising both the visible and the, to the human eye, invisible in the series of drawings Glaciär (Sara Ugma) [Glacier (Sara Ugma)] (2022). She takes an interest in events that have affected or will affect nature. When she heard about a forest fire ravaging an area close to the glacier Sara Ugma in the Himalayas in the spring of 2022, she wanted to transform it into images. Scientists expressed concern about how soot from the fire risked causing snow on the glacier to melt. Simultaneously, she read about extreme temperatures becoming increasingly common and that the colour red is no longer enough to indicate the hottest zone. A colour combination of magenta and violet blue has been added for temperatures between 51-54 degrees Celsius.

Solastalgia – climate & future is a collaboration with the Linneaus University and coincides with the conference Environmental Emergencies Across Media 16-18 March 2023. One of its main questions is how to communicate the climate crisis and its consequences. The collaboration between Kalmar konstmuseum and the Linneaus University is an opportunity to exchange experiences and let science and art meet.