Video series

Discover the exhibition online

In our video series, we offer you a special insight into the content and artistic focus of the exhibition After Us, the Flood with interviews and artist statements. With impressive and frighteningly beautiful photographic and video works, the show demonstrates the consequences of the climate crisis.

Note

The exhibition runtime has been extended until 5 April 2021, therefore the date in the videos shown no longer matches.

"It's about the presence and absence of water: melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, associated droughts and for us in Austria, very topical and explosive, the melting of the Alpine glaciers." - Bettina Leidl, director

Director Bettina Leidl and curators Sophie Haslinger and Verena Kaspar-Eisert discuss the exhibition After Us, the Deluge and provide insights into the negotiation of the climate crisis from an artistic perspective. Using photography and video, the ecological effects of our growth-oriented economic system are made clear and touch us on an emotional level. In doing so, "the individual works show phenomena of man-made climate change in different ways with different artistic approaches." - Verena Kaspar-Eisert, curator

After Us, the Flood uses art to make us aware of the urgency of taking action. Because "the climate crisis is a crisis of global justice. The Global North is largely responsible for emissions, while the consequences are outsourced to the Global South." - Sophie Haslinger, curator

"A landscape image is always somehow political and a propaganda tool. No matter if it's for the tourism industry or to underpin political currents." - Michael Goldgruber, artist

A new work was created for the exhibition After Us, the Flood, for which the artist Michael Goldgruber travelled to the Ötztal Alps in the summer of 2020. In the artist portrait of his work Talschluss, Goldgruber tells you more about his approximately ten-metre-long wall installation and clarifies the connection between his work process and the climate crisis.

"The opposite would be to say: not driven by one's own advantage and instead focus on a world that remains preserved and liveable." - Gabriele Rothemann, artist

In autumn 2019, artist Gabriele Rothemann travelled to Iceland to Sólheimajökull, a glacier tongue in the south of the island nation, and photographed the almost monochrome landscape there. In her black and white images, which are formally reminiscent of photographs of polar expeditions from the 19th century, she places floating drift ice in the centre of the picture. These are fragments that have broken away from the ice mass due to global warming and are awaiting dissolution. Iceland's glaciers are particularly hard hit by climate change; the melting has accelerated alarmingly over the past twenty years. With miniatures about the disappearance, Gabriele Rothemann dedicates a subtle work to the glaciers threatened with extinction.

"But in light of the current climate crisis, we should recognise that the short-term solutions of the past cannot be solutions for the future." - Axel Braun, artist

In his installation Records of Loss, conceived especially for the exhibition, Axel Braun combines historical representations of the glacier with visualisations of current glacier measurements and supplements these with his own photographic and film documentation, for which he accompanied geologists from the universities of Vienna and Graz, among others, during their field work on the Pasterze. Some of Braun's photographs show, for example, the area released by the glacier since 1848 - only at second glance and in juxtaposition with historical sources do the fatal traces of human activity become visible in the landscape photographs. Through the overlapping of different images and the simultaneity of historical and current content, the artist creates an overall image of the Pasterze, making its cultural history spatially and associatively tangible in the exhibition space.

"For me, it really is a deluge that we are heading for. However, we still have the possibility to avert it." - Dominik Schmitz, Sustainability Scientist

Dominik Schmitz (Centre for Global Change & Sustainability, BOKU Vienna) talks about the global climate crisis caused by mankind from a scientific point of view and addresses the significance of the tipping effects in the climate system, which are shown in the exhibition After Us, the Flood. The scientist also gives an outlook on climate policy developments and appeals for urgent action to preserve the earth's climate for future generations.

"I am addressing the issues of urban planning, climate gentrification, and climate anxiety." - Anastasia Samoylova, artist

In her artistic practice, Anastasia Samoylova moves between observational photography, studio practice and installation. With her works, the Russian-American artist explores concepts of environmentalism, consumerism and the picturesque. In the Artist Statement, she tells us more about her work and shares her opinion on the question "Can art save the climate?".

"Art is more important than ever before for me, especially in times of crisis. And it is the right time to reinvent ourselves, develop our imagination, open our minds to new possibilities, and preserve the world we live in." - Douglas Mandry, artist

Artist and photographer Douglas Mandry's work explores diverse forms of landscape representation and photography as a means of preserving memory. In the Artist Statement he tells us more about his artistic practice and the power of art to change things.

"I would call myself an activist, though I don't use an overt narrative to point what's happening, but instead use and create this kind of emotional portals to build and cultivate an empathic exchange between the audience and the planet." - Christina Seely, artist

Through her photographic work, Christina Seely creates a connection between scientific data and emotions and makes us aware of the fragility of nature. In the Artist Statement she gives an insight into her work Terra Systema. Tempo and tells us more about her narrative as a photographer.

"I have photographed drunken trees, which are trees that have lost their ability to stand upright and which I think are a perfect symbol for a world that has lost its balance." - Benedikt Partenheimer, artist

Benedikt Partenheimer's artistic practice focuses on issues related to the effects of excessive global economic growth. In the Artist Statement, he tells us more about his landscape photographs, for which the artist drove across Alaska.

"I don't think art can save climate or anything for that matter. But it can do question the things and address the things that needs to be changed." - Sarker Protick, artist

Sarker Protick has been photographing along the largest water vein in his home country, Bangladesh, since 2011. The quiet, unagitated photographs, like the video work Monsoon, for which the artist composed a piece of music, are permeated by a melancholy underlying tone. In the artist statement, he gives an insight into his artistic work and talks about the potential for action in art.