At the reopening of Tate Britain, Liberate Tate traced the chronology of the exhibition “BP Walk Through British Art” to mark the increase in carbon in the atmosphere over each decade.

This performance, Parts Per Million, is one of four pieces short-listed in the “Best Artistic Response” category of the Climate Week awards.

Through a variety of art actions and performances, Liberate Tate is campaigning for an end to BP sponsorship of the Tate galleries. Parts Per Million was the group’s 10th performance at Tate.

Parts Per Million was performed by fifty veiled members of Liberate Tate, who together counted the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere through the corresponding decades that made up the ‘BP Walk Through British Art’. They performed the work at Tate Britain during the gallery’s official re-opening on Saturday 23 November 2013.  In each room they arranged themselves in a different configuration and counted aloud the increase in atmospheric carbon ppm during that time period.

They began in the ‘1840′ room, when the industrial revolution started to significantly impact emission levels, and end in the present day room with contemporary art created as carbon dioxide levels reached an all-time high of 400 parts per million (ppm).

More info here.

Are any Upper Calder Valley artists making work about climate change? Please get in touch if you are, or know of any such work in the area.