Climate Clock
Work: No.1574 Stone
Location: Oulu, Finland
Date: 2026
No.1574 Stone consists of large pieces of granite and marble, cut and painted to evoke large fragments of broken, glacial ice.
One side is painted in silver metallic paint, evoking the colour, texture and light reflections on the surfaces of the ice. The second side has been highly polished to capture the surroundings and movement of people through the square; the edges are sometimes left raw and hammered to correspond with forms of fractured ice.
The work takes inspiration from Oulu’s subarctic light and intricate shapes of its sea ice to reflect upon the alarming melting rate of Arctic Circle glaciers. The research for this work was done in collaboration with glaciologist Alan Hubbard (University of Oulu) and footage collated from his research (shown on the BBC’s Frozen Planet).
Photography and video by Andy Stagg
Begum’s intervention speaks to the monumental shifts she felt whilst engaging with the research. Listening to the violent and loud sounds of the ice as it breaks; recalling the experience as being both aggressive and beautiful. The juxtaposition of these two emotions, causing us to question our relation to the climate crisis, the force of nature and its response.
Placed in the square, and in correlation with the city and its inhabitants the work invites the viewer to reflect upon this duality, which touches upon concepts of evolution, transformation, loss and permanence. The dialogue between ice, and stone sourced from a quarry in Ylamaa, speaks directly to the finish landscape and further empathises the relation between geological time and the present, rapidly changing environment.
Engineered by Webb Yates
Stones by Ylamaan Graniitti
