The Climate Issue
Tipping Point
The Big Story: Dancing towards the unknown
In our first issue of Scott & Co Quarterly we focus on the space between contemporary culture and action on climate change. For New York Climate Week, Scott & Co launched Vertical Migration, a dramatic new video installation that was projected onto the northern facade of Manhattan’s U.N. Secretariat building nightly last week. The artwork pays homage to the siphonophore: an under-researched but extraordinary deep-sea creature, composed of many individual parts working together in unison to perform a crucial role in the fight against climate change.
Created by artist group SUPERFLEX and commissioned by our client, TBA21–Academy, together with ART2030, Vertical Migration’s hypnotic dance across the building’s exterior mirrors the nightly expedition from the ocean’s twilight zone to the surface and back again made by siphonophores and other deep-sea creatures. Over the course of a year, these migrations capture and remove from the atmosphere a volume of carbon estimated to be several times that emitted by all the world’s cars. These guys are not messing around!
Speaking to Arthur Lubow in The New York Times last week, Peter de Menocal, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said, “this is a very humble call to action by showing a humble organism that itself illustrates the importance of cooperation.” Markus Reymann, co-founder and director of TBA21–Academy refers to Vertical Migration as “an expression of hope in the face of the climate crisis – created not by people, but by nature itself.”
After the numerous ecological, social and political upheavals of the past year, where do we go from here? Perhaps it feels like we are dancing into the unknown, but do it like a siphonophore.
The Digest People, Places & Ideas
As a founding member of the Gallery Climate Coalition, Scott & Co is excited to announce we have completed our first carbon audit as part of the Gallery Climate Coalition’s Carbon Reporting Campaign which aims to gather as much data as possible in the lead up to Cop26 in November. Results on our instagram here
7 things you can do right now to take action on climate change (via @earthrisestudio)
“When everyone is an activist online, is anyone?” Ella Glover explores the shortfalls of social media activism (i-D)
“The art world’s preoccupation with environmental art has long felt at odds with its carbon-intensive globe-trotting ways. But members of the trade are increasingly putting their money where their mouths are” Anny Shaw reports on Gallery Climate Coalition teaming up with Christie’s to raise between $5m-$10m for environmental charity ClientEarth. (The Art Newspaper)
“In some ways, the world has gone from a place we knew, to a stranger with whom we have to reacquaint ourselves afresh.” Enuma Okoro wonders how we can learn to be social again as we emerge into a post-lockdown world. (Financial Times)
“Art is not helping me transcend the fear, exhaustion, sadness, and distrust that took over my worldview this past year. […] It has instead grounded me more fully, more critically, and sometimes more imaginatively in the here and now.” Lori Waxman on how the health crisis is reshaping contemporary art and changing how we look at it. (artnet)
“Listening to 80s pop music is the aim of human existence” – sage words from Stefanie Posavec’s ‘Updating Happiness’ project commissioned by Wellcome Collection (via @updatinghappiness)
And just for fun, what does Marcus Rashford’s secret sketchbook look like? Spaghetti Clurb has kept us laughing throughout the pandemic (@spaghetticlurb)
Agenda Dates for your Diary
The Soul Expanding Ocean #2: Isabel Lewis at Ocean Space, Venice until 17 October
Simeon Barclay: England’s Lost Camelot at Workplace, London, until 29 October
Marina Adams: Wild Is Its Own Way at Stephen Friedman Gallery, until 30 October
Making It: Abstract Women &; Sculptures at Waddington Custot, London, 1 October – 13 November
Hurvin Anderson: Reverb at Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 11 October – 4 December
Frieze London & Frieze Masters, 13 – 17 October
Gallery Climate Coalition at Frieze, 13 – 17 October; Gallery Climate Coalition: Artists for ClientEarth auction at Christie’s, launches 15 October
#CreateCOP26 Virtual 3D Exhibition at ArtPartner.com October 25 – November 12
UN Climate Change Conference UK, 31 October – 12 November
Julian Opie at Newlands House Gallery, Petworth, West Sussex, 6 November – 6 March 2022
Launch of Frédéric de Goldschmidt’s Cloud Seven – a new exhibition, co-working and residential hub in Brussels, 11 November
Feliza Bursztyn at Muzeum Susch, Switzerland, opening 18 December