Melting Men | The Art That Melts Away

Recently, artist Nele Azevedo carved 1,000 little men out of ice. She strategically placed these frozen figures on the steps in Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt Square. On the day she did this, the temperature was 73 F degrees (23 C) and the cold ice men started melting very quickly.

According to https://www.designboom.com, she did this to “bring awareness to the world wildlife fund’s warning, that melting ice could cause sea-levels to rise more than 3.3 ft by 2100.”

“What happens in the Arctic will have a direct impact on weather in wide parts of the planet. Sea level could rise by one meter this century alone, threatening that quarter of humanity living near coasts,” said Martin Hiller, head of climate change Campaign at WWF International.

Neve has been placing her “Melting Men” all over the world since 2005. Each little ice man is very simple in design, and looks a little bit sad. I think Nele is brilliant for being able to achieve such emotion using nothing but ice. Each time she sets up an installation like this, in 30-40 minutes it is all melted and gone. Nele says that she is not a climate change activist, she is first and foremost an artist.

Just think, with this type of art, there is no clean up afterwards! It self-dismantles and washes away.