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Public consciousness is often directed by the wave of discourse which surrounds a particular issue or cause. The very real spectre of climate change has generated considerable debate in the public field both at a macro and micro level. It seemed pertinent and timely then that 'Heat: Art and Climate Change' explored the themes surrounding degradation and decay and the evaporation of the very ecosystems which create, support and renew life - systems that are in dire threat due to post-industrial expansion. Held within the awkward confines of Melbourne's RMIT Gallery, Linda Williams curated a suite of works that pointed to an incredibly bleak and unsustainable future.

The notion of maintaining a delicate balance between the multi-layered and complex ecosystems that surround and sustain our ways of being was explored in several works. Janet Laurence's Carbon futures, 2008, is a small, biomorphic-looking sphere of blown glass which nearly became lost within the gallery space where apocalyptic endgame visions of the future dominated. Laurence's response was different, exploring the inherent renewal processes that occur as a direct result of decay. By placing plant matter into a molten-hot glass orb, seeds immediately sprang forth, signaling optimistic new beginnings. The orb was then hermetically sealed creating a mini self-contained ecosystem - delicate, unencumbered and in balance. 

The destabilisation of this fragile balance was painstakingly documented in Greg Pryor's Black Solander, 2005. Entering under the guise of the botanist, Pryor produced 5000 intricate ink and graphite drawings which were individually numbered, cataloguing Western Australia's extinct or at-risk plant species. Drawn on black sugar paper, these small rectangles of botanical documentation filled up an entire room in a wraparound mausoleum-like display. There was an overt sense of despair as the work provided an ode to flora that had been lost through human ignorance and over-consumption...

There were several works that engaged with the issue of climate change with subtlety and a sense of hope - most notably Ken Yonetani's beautiful and textural porcelain tiles of otherworldly coral, and Ash Keating's large-scale project 2020?, 2008, which reuses and reconfigures urban detritus in an environmentally sustainable collaborative art practice. Nonetheless, I could not help but walk away from the exhibition with the feeling that I had been sledgehammered. It may be my own predilection towards optimism, but there was an overwhelming sense of bleakness that flowed through the show. Instead of providing a contemplative and reflective space where the viewer could explore their own contribution to the slippery slope of climate change, this was a call to arms. Time for rumination was effectively thrown out the window in the urgent race to stem global warming.

For this third Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and Art & Australia Emerging Writers Program review, Leon Goh was mentored by Anne Marsh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research, Theory of Art & Design, Monash University, Melbourne.

This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the entire article in Art & Australia's Autumn 2009 issue.