Note to Correspondents

ICE BRIDGE, ART EXHIBIT TO HIGHLIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE AT HEADQUARTERS 17 DECEMBER

 

To raise awareness of the changing world climate, renowned Norwegian artist Vebjørn Sand will build Leonardo da Vinci’s 1502 “ Golden Horn” bridge design in the Visitors’ Plaza at the United Nations.  The 30-foot da Vinci bridge, constructed entirely of ice, will be unveiled in the Plaza following a formal ceremony in the North-East Gallery of the Visitors’ Lobby on Monday, 17 December, at 6:30 p.m.

The opening will include statements by Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information; Johan L. Løvald, Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations; Professor Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); and Vebjørn Sand.

Changing world climate is of such deep concern that the subject has been lifted to the top of the United Nations agenda.  Only a few days after the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, a melting ice bridge at United Nations Headquarters will serve as a powerful reminder of the devastating effects of global warming and the melting of the world’s ice in areas like Antarctica, the Artic and Greenland.

The da Vinci bridge was originally constructed by Sand on a recent expedition to Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.  For Mr. Sand, best known in Norway as a painter and creator of large-scale public art, the project would not be complete without a companion piece built in New York City that is intended to melt to dramatize for the general public the fragile nature of the Antarctic ice sheet.

The ice bridge will be the centrepiece for an exhibition entitled “ Antarctica:  On Thin Ice”, showing artistic renditions and scientific images of the fragile beauty of the polar regions.  The work of artists and photographers from seven countries will be on display in the North-East Gallery.  These include original watercolours by Edward Adrian Wilson, physician and artist on the ill-fated race to the South Pole headed by Robert Falcon Scott.  The pieces are borrowed from the Royal Geographical Society in London.

This exhibition is made possible with the sponsorship of the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations, in cooperation with the Department of Public Information.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at tel:  (212) 963-8531 or Liza Wichmann at tel:  (212) 963-0089.

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For information media • not an official record