Performance by Jaanika Peerna: ‘Glacier Elegy’

What would you do if you were handed the last piece of natural ice left on Earth? In her Glacier Elegy performances, Jaanika Peerna is led by this powerful question, inviting audience members to join her in reflecting upon it.

Peerna’s work has always been fueled by the forces of nature but since 2017 the artist has taken on a more specific approach to address the climate breakdown we are all surrounded with. Ever since she was a little girl dreaming of becoming an Olympic figure skater, ice has been close and dear to her: its toughness, transparency, beauty as well as fragility. As we are witnessing a massive and furious melting speed of glaciers in polar regions these past decades Peerna has sought ways to confront this reality, offering solace while also using her art to raise awareness and inspire action to minimise further destruction.
Her Glacier Elegy projects consist of exhibition-size installations and live drawing performances where at first a large drawing is made with audience participation and then melted with blocks of ice. The audience is included in a collective experience of creating something only to be literally melted away by the end of the performance. The project has had a strong impact on the participants in diverse communities and locations where Peerna has performed, incuding ArtDepoo gallery in Tallinn, Estonia, Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea, UK, Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, and on the East River in Brooklyn, NY.

This event is part of the international art and science initiative ‘Look into my Ice’.
‘Look into my Ice’ is a romantic initiative to enhance our emotions towards the coldest entity on Earth: Ice. The transeuropean project is part of the official program of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 and offers new ways to approach the disastrous speed of the disappearance of polar and glacial ice as a result of the human made climate crisis.