Bigert & Bergström

Ridå 2024;

A shredded photograph of Happisburgh Cliffs, taken at sunrise on the longest day of 2023.

The title is a Swedish word that signifies “bringing the curtain down” on something. The shredded photograph, its layered arrangement and the geological symbols denoting faults and danger evoke the gradual collapse of these fragile cliffs and the accelerating forces reshaping them.

Bigert & Bergström is a Swedish artist duo comprising Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström, who have worked collaboratively since meeting at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 1986. Their multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, installation, film and large-scale public art, often exploring the complex relationship between humanity, technology and the natural world.

Environmental change has become a defining theme of their work. Through ambitious and frequently experimental projects, Bigert & Bergström investigate subjects including climate change, extreme weather, rising temperatures, resource consumption and humanity’s attempts to control natural systems. Their work often combines scientific research with humour, spectacle and an element of absurdity, encouraging audiences to question both our impact on the planet and the technological solutions proposed in response.

Among their best-known projects is The Weather War, which explored humanity’s long history of attempting to manipulate weather, while Rescue Blanket for Kebnekaise examined the disappearance of Sweden’s highest glacier. For this project, the artists developed a reflective thermal blanket designed to cover part of the glacier and slow summer melting – an intervention that was simultaneously practical, symbolic and deliberately provocative.

Their acclaimed Solar Egg, a golden mirrored sauna created for the northern Swedish town of Kiruna, similarly brings together art, landscape and environmental change. Inspired by Kiruna’s transformation and relocation as a result of more than a century of iron-ore mining, the work became a space for conversation about community, climate, resources and our relationship with the landscape.

Bigert & Bergström have exhibited extensively in museums, galleries and public spaces internationally. Across nearly four decades of collaboration, they have developed a distinctive approach in which art becomes a form of investigation – making complex environmental issues tangible, engaging and sometimes unsettling. Their work asks audiences not simply to observe environmental change, but to consider humanity’s role within it and the choices that will shape our collective future.

Rising seas and stronger storms are accelerating coastal erosion, transforming coastlines and threatening communities, wildlife and the habitats they depend on.

RENEWAL IN ACTION: Nature’s Defences

Pakistan’s Delta Blue Carbon project is the world’s largest blue carbon restoration initiative, protecting 350,000 hectares of mangrove forests, tidal wetlands and coastal habitats. By restoring vast areas of mangroves, the project is stabilising shorelines, reducing wave energy during storms, providing vital habitat for wildlife and storing millions of tonnes of carbon.