The Green Drawings
- drawings, pen on paper; text.
collaboration with Conny Blom. 2017
http://www.mg-lj.si/en/exhibitions/2202/draught-nina-slejko-blom-conny-blom-the-green-drawings/
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image bottom left: Dejan Habicht / Courtesy Moderna galerija, Ljubljana
The Green Drawings is a provocative project that transforms environmental economics into a participatory art experience. Comprised of 240 framed, felt-pen-on-paper drawings, the project invites viewers to engage with the mechanisms of carbon offsetting by purchasing artwork for 20€ each. This nominal fee funds the acquisition of carbon emission rights, permanently removing 1 tonne of CO2 per sale from circulation.
By adopting the same neoliberal logic that governs carbon markets, The Green Drawings cynically highlights the inadequacy of relying on market forces to combat climate change. Visitors actively participate in this critique: they take drawings from the wall, leaving behind green crosses as a testament to their purchase. The project offers a stark reflection on guilt, redemption, and environmental responsibility. While providing the illusion of a guilt-free conscience, it underscores the absurdity of offsetting personal emissions through commodified solutions, all while questioning the systems perpetuating this cycle.
We are selling emission rights and giving away artworks for your troubles.
We are offering you a chance to save the planet.
Granted, we are polluting while doing so, but appear green nonetheless. The pens we used were green inside and out. But the frames were not. Neither were our journeys.
This is a cynical project.
One that offers you a chance to redeem yourself. Buy some emission rights and pollute guilt-free! Like we do.
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.
For 20€ each, the drawings offer cheap redemption to anyone who wants to feel comfortable driving their car around the corner to a store or work, or who vacations in resorts they reach by plane. The complete value of every sale goes to the purchase of emission rights that will then be locked away from the market. At current prices, every sold drawing will buy the right to emit out 1 tonne of CO2, an amount that the atmosphere will now be spared.
Follow our example. We bought two tonnes of emission rights, the amount that equals the sum of CO2 released into the atmosphere in the making of this work.
Buy the rights. Get the drawings. Take them from the wall and pay at the counter.
Let’s save the Earth.
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NUMBERS
carbon footprint
180 km travelled by international rail
(from where we live to the airport and back):
0.00 tonnes
Flights, Copenhagen–Ljubljana, return, two people:
0.6–0.7 tonnes
Two nights in a hotel, with visits to restaurants, pubs, etc.
0.18 tonnes
Car ride, Bukovje–Ljubljana, return:
average diesel car
100 km:
0.02 tonnes
(100 km travelled in an average petrol-fuelled car:
0.02 tonnes)
Plus a generously estimated tonne for the
240 IKEA Limhall frames,
120 sheets of black paper, A4, 120g,
240 sheets of white paper, 8,5x12cm, 300g,
11 Penol 100, permanent Eco pens,
Car journey, Bukovje–Zagreb, return.
