Johannes Pannekoek Tipping Point, 2021
WA, Australia
stainless steel, corten steel
310 x 240 x 320cm
The curvilinear abstract Tipping Point by Johannes Pannekoek was exhibited at Sculptures by The Sea in 2021, accompanied by this artist statement; "The earth's ecosystem has valiantly coped with and even overcome stresses from human activities for millennia. Today we are stressing our collective climate and creating feedback loops that push ecosystems to a point of no return. The urgency around limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees is to avoid reaching these irreversible tipping points."
Johannes used 2.5 tonnes of carbon credits to offset the 1.2 tonnes of steel and energy used to fabricate the sculpture. Balanced on a Corten Steel cube, the work employs stainless steel in an abstract representation of feedback loops pushing earth's interconnected ecosystems to irreversible changes.