The single most important issue for (art) today

The single most important issue for art today and tomorrow is climate change. As something that affects us all and will alter the way we live on this planet it is also, without question, the issue that we all should be most concerned about and engaged in.

Yesterday 10:10 launched in Britain at the Tate Modern, an initiative that puts together artists, musicians, actors, businesses and everybody in between to encourage us all to reduce our carbon emissions by 10% in 2010.

With artists on board such as Gillian Wearing, Anthony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Bob and Roberta Smith, the campaign is supported by a range of organisations from the Guardian to Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and has already attracted a host of backers from Colin Firth and Stella McCartney to Sarah Waters and Mike Figgis. Tensta Konsthall has also signed up and we will do our best to meet the goals. We are also proud that we will open 2010 with the exhibition ReThink Art and Climate Change. The exhibition is part of a major series of activities connected to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009 that has been organised by The Alexandra Institute and has also involved The National Gallery of Denmark, Den Frie Centre of Contemporary art and Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center. Tensta Konsthall will be working with the exhibition from Nikolaj and with a a fabulous list of artists including, Superflex, Lise Autogena, Joshua Portway, Bill Burns, The Icelandic Love Corporation, Eric Andersen and Tea Mäkipää. We will of course be adding lots more information to this site as we get closer to the opening, but we all feel that the need to mark this day as important. As an institution of art that is committed to social engagement supporting the 10:10 campaign and organising the ReThink exhibition is at the core of what we see as our basic mission.

We stand on the brink of great change and perhaps the greatest cataclysm in human history. A series of events that will not only affect all of us but radically change life on earth. Looking at the very near future, most recent reports estimate that 600 million people are living in areas that will be directly affected by expected rising sea levels within ten years. This is not fear mongering or exaggeration these are simple facts of life. The speed of climate change is alarming and as one scientist recently put it if we can reduce our carbon emissions by 50% in the next two decades we stand a fifty / fifty chance of avoiding the spiraling temperature rises that in many views lead inevitably to the end of life on this planet as we know it. The odds are terrible and we must act now in order to shorten them. The glaciers of Greenland are melting rapidly, polar bears skipped their hibernation last year and the Pentagon have developed plans for climate wars. We encourage everyone to join 10:10:

http://www.1010uk.org