Thaw

‘Climate collapse … does not announce itself in a single image or a single statistic. It unfolds slowly’. For decades now, artists and writers have visited the vanishing ice floes of the Arctic to bring back a record of our planetary crisis. But how effective is their creative work?

This month, the artist Richard Koscher joins The Arctic Circle residency aboard the Rembrandt van Rijn for a 16-day expedition through Svalbard. His project, Ghosts of the Ice, combines thermochromic paintings that vanish with heat, a documentary, and a serialised blog on themes of loss, climate, and disappearance. Second post in our series on the polar lands and the human imagination. With existential artwork by Will Gill from Issue 11.

THERE IS A PHRASE I HAVE HEARD SO OFTEN that it has begun to lose all shape. It floats through artist statements, panel discussions, grant applications, captions beneath burning forests and melting ice. It sounds responsible. It sounds generous. It sounds like action. The phrase is ‘raising awareness’.

I used it myself for years without thinking much about it. That is part of the problem. The phrase does not invite thought. It invites agreement. Once spoken, it closes the conversation instead of opening it.

How many times have you seen an image, nodded quietly, felt a small tightening in your chest, and kept scrolling. The ice is melting. Awareness raised. The forest is burning. Awareness raised. A painting is stolen. Awareness raised. The planet is warming. Awareness raised. What happens next is rarely mentioned. The phrase implies that something has been accomplished. Recognition becomes a conclusion rather than a beginning.

Awareness has quietly become a moral finish line.

The danger is not that people do not care. The danger is that caring has been compressed into a moment so brief it requires nothing of us beyond acknowledgment. Once we know, we are done. We have fulfilled our obligation. We are free to move on.

Climate collapse does not work this way. It does not announce itself in a single image or a single statistic. It unfolds slowly, unevenly, across decades and regions and lives that never trend. Ice does not vanish in one dramatic instant. It thins. It cracks. It recedes. It disappears while no one is looking. A system built for reaction is incapable of holding this kind of loss.

This is why awareness feels productive while changing nothing.

We live in a culture where millions can watch a climate documentary, feel briefly moved, and return to lives structured in exactly the same way as before. Emissions continue to rise. Systems remain intact. Attention moves on. The illusion of progress is comforting. It allows us to feel engaged without being implicated.

Artists are often asked to contribute to this illusion. ‘Raise awareness’ usually means make something legible. Make it clear. Make it consumable. Make people feel informed, perhaps even virtuous, for having encountered it. The request is rarely to disturb or unsettle or demand time. It is to package concern in a way that does not linger.

This is where I began to feel resistance.