Climate Changing Room V (Panel 34), 2020

Kasia Fudakowski, Climate Changing Room V (Panel 34), 2020 – (Continuouslessness, 2017 – ongoing); Painted steel fabricated by Eyyup Teymur and Serhut Öztemir in Istanbul, with production assistance from Hande Alpaslan; 200 × 110 × 2 cm

In 2017, Fudakowski began her series Continouslessness, which is composed of various elements resembling screens that were created in the scope of different art institutional contexts. For structural stability, each of the individual panels must be linked together with hinges that create one large installation that remain unfinished until the artist’s death.

The Climate Changing Room iteration of this series consists of five rounded arches that resemble changing screens that have been welded from tubular steel to create ornamental frames. Originally positioned along the boundary between a public beach and the nudist area of Silbersee II in North Rhine-Westphalia for the 2020 exhibition Ruhr Ding: Klima: Urbane Künste Ruhr, these dividers contain malleable fig leaves that can be aligned to minimally cover the body’s intimate areas. Made in response to Germany’s Ruhr area, the work calls attention to global warming as well as the changing social climate that accompanies the current situation. Formerly the epicenter of the country’s industrialization, especially for coal and steel, the region has experienced the long-term impacts of public planning strategies that have influenced Germany’s economic promotion and the resulting environmental destruction. By using steel in the construction of this work, Fudakowski adds to the discourse and branches into discussions of climate action.