Yann Mingard - Everything is Up in the Air, Thus Our Vertigo

Yann Mingard photographed ice cores for the series >Ice Core<. "This work revolves around the age when man has the greatest impact on the environment and focuses on geological studies on climate change. "The approximately three-centimeter ice core is a sample from an 8,000-year-old piece of Antarctic ice, which is being researched at the Institute of the Géosciences de l´Environnement in Grenoble. In a container at minus 30 degrees (so that the ice does not melt) scientists microscopically examine the oxygen bubbles and their different layers in ice cores. They contain information from the past, but at the same time they are fragile. If we are not careful, they just disappear into nothingness. Because the glaciers are melting and with them all this precious data ... In a way, this shows what we humans have been doing with our environment since the Industrial Revolution: We are in the process of reducing it to >nothing<. " (Yann Mingard)

While his previous project “Deposit” was more long-term and encyclopedic, the current project is more allegorical in its artistic strategy, but no less far-reaching and relevant. By means of visualizing traces that point to interventions and, ultimately, disturbances of the environment, “Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo” not only illustrates the destructive power of man as the dominant agency of the Anthropocene, but also encourages individuals to reflect on their responsibility as citizens and consumers. In his often dystopian arrangements of still lifes, landscapes and appropriated documents, not only is the state of the world itself the focus of his artistic exploration. Mingard also reflects the influence of mass media on politics and public knowledge and the concomitant social and individual attitudes and convictions – ranging from a belief in miracles to conspiracy theories.

Yann Mingard, born in 1973, studied at the École Supérieure des Arts Visuels in Vevey in Switzerland. Fotomuseum Winterthur devoted a major solo museum exhibition to “Deposit” in 2014, an exhibition which traveled to Essen’s Folkwang Museum. Mingard´s most recent project „Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo“ is currently on view in a comprehensive show at the Musée de l´Elysée in Lausanne (CH). Mingard´s works are represented in numerous international collections such as: Folkwang Museum, Essen (D), Fotomuseum Winterthur (CH), Musée de l’Elysée (CH), FNAC (F), Banque Cantonale Neuchâteloise (CH), Banque Julius Baer, New York (USA) FAP, Fonds d’art Plastiques, Lausanne (CH)