The iceberg method

The iceberg method, group exhibition No Weather Today, Pilsen City Gallery, in cooperation with Andea Uváčiková, 2023

“It’s just the tip of the iceberg.” The tip of the iceberg as something superficial that we can see with the naked eye, but there is usually something more underneath. The tip of the iceberg as a small part of what is. As a foreboding of things to come.

At first glance, the installation lends itself to the primary idea of melting glaciers as a result of global warming. Unfortunately, even nowadays, the global environmental crisis seems so distant to many people that they consider it something that is happening “outside them”, something that does not concern them, or they deny it completely. Who and how is it affected by the fact that somewhere on the opposite end of the globe a glacier melts or that the temperature of the sea rises by a few degrees? It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Below it is a package of known consequences that are waiting for our planet, but also the unknown space of our future world, which we are approaching with our daily way of life. Can our worries, fears, stress and other subjective experiences also be a consequence of how is our society working? Can they also be a symptom of a life that is anxiously separated from the problems “out there”, at the other end of the planet, separated from the environment in which we live? And vice versa: are our subjective problems really subjective, or in the context of the entire planetary development, do they offer other explanations than that they are some kind of “defect of each individual”?

Text: Andrea Uváčiková

The installation consists of two objects, the first containing the text HOT, which is immersed in the aquarium. The text is printed from soluble PVA plastic, on which there is a layer of printing ink. The work is procedural. After the letters dissolve, only the color sinks.

The second object contains a sculpture resembling an iceberg, where only the tip is soluble. The object is placed in the aquarium together with a pump that pumps water to the tip of the object. The water starts only when a visitor arrives, a motion sensor is located near the object.

The installation contains drawings/texts that follow the objects. The drawings expand into the space around the objects on the floor.