HA Schult: Endgame at North Pole
Fri, March 18, 2011 12 pm CET, Performance
"The complex ecological catastrophe in Japan is yet another display of the instability of our civilization’s foundations and the necessity of measures for solving the global environmental crisis." (Peter Weibel)

On Friday, 18 March 2011, a live hook up to the North Pole will take place at ZKM from 12 noon to 1 p.m. Artist HA Schult draws attention to the dangers of ecological imbalance with this spectacular action, sending his army of "Trash People" to the no-longer-eternal ice of the arctic.
HA Schult, environmental artist from day one, has wandered the globe since 1996 with his army of "Trash People." As refugees of the consumer society, they have stood in Paris before La Grand Arche, in Moscow on Red Square, at the Great Wall of China, and before the pyramids in Egypt. They have been high up on the Matterhorn, around the Stellisee, deep down in the storage facilities of Gorleben, at the Grand-Place of Brussels, before Cologne’s Dom, at Piazza del Popolo in Rome, and the Plaza Real in Barcelona.
In 2009, on the occasion of the G8 environmental summit in Syracuse, Sicily, they appeared before the world’s environmental ministers.
Since autumn 2010, the "Trash People" have been spending the winter in their containers on the coast of Svalbard. Now, together with a team of helpers, HA Schult has brought them from the island to the ice off of Longyearbyen, one of the northernmost areas inhabited by humans.
Here, from 14 to 20 March 2011, they will withstand icy arctic storms with temperatures as low as -350° C.
With this art adventure, the riskiest since his "Crash!" in New York in 1977, HA Schult delivers his picture of us, and our globe, 34 years later.

Location: Longyearbyen, Street into Advent Valley, 2 miles left
Dimension: 32,300 sf
Transport: 12 container by sea
Construction: 12 hours, 20 assistants


HA Schult has had the pleasure of personal engagement in his work from, among others, Prince Haakon Magnus of Norway, Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan, Federal Minister for Education and Research, and Prof. Dr. Bernd von Droste zu Hülshoff, Founding Director, Unesco World Heritage.
Organization / Institution
ZKM

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