Art review: After the End of the World

In Stanley Kramer’s classic 1959 doomsday film On the Beach, a handful of Australian survivors of a nuclear attack search desperately for signs of life on a ravaged planet Earth. Visitors to the ‘After the End of the World’ exhibition are faced with a similarly bleak outlook, from the moment they enter the exhibition and are faced with a widescreen prologue by American science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, which raises some probing questions: What will the Earth be like if it continues on its current path of self-destruction? What will the lives of our children and grandchildren look like?

It is certainly not a happy show but, like Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), it is necessary viewing. In these topsy-turvy times, when the US president fills the Environmental Protection Agency with climate-change naysayers, never has grassroots activism been more important. The content of ‘After the End of the World’ gives viewers ample information about the current state of affairs, how we got here and what we might be able to do about it.

The exhibition introduces the concept of the Anthropocene era, an official designation well-known to geologists, but not yet in the vocabulary of the general public. Scientists have determined that since the 20th-century—approximately around the time nuclear testing began—the planet has been altered, perhaps irreversibly, by man. During the previous 12,000 years (beginning with the last Ice Age), human beings enjoyed a relatively stable climate, called the Holocene Epoch. In short, the Earth has changed so profoundly in the last century, that we have entered a new geological era.

‘After the End of the World’ is divided into eight sections in which scientists walk us through the destruction that has enveloped us all, and give us hope that people have the ability to reverse some of the seemingly irreversible damage. We still have the chance, we are reminded, to reduce CO² emissions in order to stop suffocating the planet, and to come up with strategies for survival.

The alternative is not a particularly pretty one, as demonstrated by one exhibit that simulates a London residence in the year 2050 (as imagined by the speculative design studio Superflux). Formerly useful objects, such as computers, have been pilfered for parts, and the inhabitants live surrounded by hydroponic, grey-coloured plants: the only food source in a world whose climate has been altered by hurricanes and drought.

An ironically lyrical video expedition by Kate Davies and Liam Young of the UK’s Unknown Fields Division—a nomadic design research studio—explores the global infrastructure of the fashion world, forcing those of us who buy and wear clothing in the 21st century to consider the high cost of its low price.

Another participatory installation forces the audience to confront itself (literally, in a mirrored tank of water) face-to-face with the unstoppable jellyfish, a poisonous symbol of diseased oceans and seas. We learn that jellyfish were here long before we were, and that they will ultimately outlive us. Particularly shocking were the statistics presented in the installation by Charles Lim about ‘terraforming’ in Singapore. The tiny but rich city-state continues to expand its borders by buying and dumping sand in order to reclaim land for the expansion of its petrochemical industries. The island has already grown by one quarter of its original size, which has contributed to rising sea levels worldwide and, not least, in Singapore itself. Scientists warn that if the current rate of land reclamation continues, sea waters will rise six feet by 2100.

But there is hope! We are ushered out of the exhibition with an introduction to Barcelona’s own City Station and Environmental Health Clinic by artist Natalie Jeremijenko in the Sant Martí neighbourhood. The goal is to engage the public in improving the local environment through initiatives such as creating urban green spaces. Both the Ajuntament and the CCCB are part of this important effort. 

The admission ticket to this exhibition at the CCCB also gives you access to the ‘Oceans’ exhibit at the Museu Blau, Barcelona’s Natural Science Museum.