Review: Cointelegraph-Inspired Climate Change Art Exhibition

Selva Ozelli is an international tax attorney and regular contributor to Cointelegraph. She gives her expert opinion on a range of subjects, including how cryptocurrency and blockchain technology can both positively and negatively impact climate change issues.

She is also an award-winning artist, and has recently curated the First Digital Climate Change Art Show. This show also features works by some of her fellow artists at Atelier Teymur Rzayev in Turkey.

All of the works have been inspired by articles in Ozelli’s climate change series, so it seemed the natural thing for Cointelegraph to do was to review the exhibition.

Does Art imitate Cointelegraph after all?

The artwork of the ten artists represented covers a variety of styles, but although it is inspired by cryptocurrency-related stories, you are unlikely to spot any errant hardware wallets or representations of the blockchain in the 16 images on display.

Instead, the artists have unsurprisingly chosen to illustrate the environmental impacts highlighted by these articles. A pair of striking images by Ilhan Sayin, detailing close-ups of flowering cacti represent the threat of desertification, as does the equally powerful “Running To The Oasis” by Serife Akkan.

Other personal favourites include “Climate Change” and “Not Like Before” by Rana Balkis, the latter depicting the theme of carbon emission reporting during coronavirus, and one of Ozelli’s own submissions for the show, “Tsunami”, which was inspired by Japan’s solarization of its digital economy.

Other works in the show take inspiration from issues raised around Arctic melting in Russia Leads Multinational Stablecoin Initiative, and an article about the European Union’s crypto energy consumption and green policies.

Coronavirus sends art shows online

The show was scheduled to run from May 30 until June 12, coinciding with the week of World Environment Day on June 5 and World Ocean Day on June 8. However, due to social distancing rules, the physical show has now become a digital one, hosted by Pinelo Gallery in Istanbul.

This also allowed a number of additional images to be included at the eleventh hour, due to the removal of wall-space limits.

The show has been compiled into a 1 minute video clip, viewable here. While the cryptocurrency link may not be obvious, anybody who doesn’t have a spare 60 seconds in their life to briefly look at some artwork and potentially brighten their day, has my genuine sympathy.

Go on… it really can’t hurt.

As the show only features 16 images, Cointelegraph decided that we wouldn’t spoil it by showing any of them here. However, here is one of Ozelli’s other coronavirus-inspired artworks featuring Ethereum’s own Vitalik Buterin and titled “Simply Trying To Survive.”