NINA SLEJKO BLOM & CONNY BLOM / The Green Drawings: I Pledge, 2021
PRESENTING THE EKO 8 ART PROJECTS
NINA SLEJKO BLOM & CONNY BLOM / The Green Drawings: I Pledge, 2021
artists’ book, 200 copies
courtesy of the artists, publication of the book in the framework of EKO 8 Triennial was made possible with kind support from Lumar
"Whilst our politicians keep meeting and applauding their own insufficient decisions, the planet keeps burning. Us, we keep on drawing and doing swapsies. This time we are offering our artist's book in exchange for environment-friendly activity – green books for green deeds. If you want a copy of the book, come up with an action or with climate friendly behaviour to add to your everyday life, write it down on this form, sign it and remove one copy of the book from the wall. Place this form on the nail from which you have taken the book." (Nina Slejko Blom & Conny Blom)
The Green Drawings is a project that uses the logic of free market capitalism to limit the total amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere. Current environmental politics put great faith in the free market to govern emissions. The amount of CO2 a country is allowed to release per year is limited, and big polluters must buy the rights for their emissions. Due to the finite number of such rights, if demand rises, so do the prices. This, in turn, creates an incentive for corporations to limit their emissions. In other words, if it is profitable, the market itself will save the world. But for that to happen the total number of emission rights would have to be severely reduced compared to the situation today.
The Green Drawings: I Pledge is the third in a series of Green Drawings presentations. The first iteration saw a series of green drawings – green in both senses of the word – on sale for 20 € each. The complete value of every sale went to the purchase of emission rights that were then locked away from the market. In the second iteration Green Drawings were on sale too, but rather than paying with money, visitors could pay with testimonies of environment-friendly deeds. In the third iteration, presented here, the visitors can exchange previously collected descriptions of green deeds in book form for their own descriptions of the same thing. From a cynical perspective, the project uses the same neoliberal logic that controls carbon dioxide emissions, to enable art consumers to buy themselves a guilt-free conscience.
Nina Slejko Blom (b. 1982, Slovenia) is an international contemporary artist currently based in Sweden. She is a post-studio artist, often examining the art world and its institutions, and various other power structures in her work. Working both separately and in a team with Conny Blom, she has made over 250 exhibitions at relevant institutions around the world.
In his artistic practice, Conny Blom (b. 1974, Sweden) works in many different media and frequently examines hierarchies and reveals alternative readings by remediating pre-existing material. Censorship and copyright are two topics that he has often returned to through the years. Working both separately and in a team with Nina Slejko Blom, he has made over 250 exhibitions at relevant institutions around the world.
