Melted Antarctica, 33 seconds, 2026

white salt and hot water on a plastic screen, blue cardboard

Art Statement

In Fernando Castro’s review of MUÑOZ & MUNIZ, he writes about the Colombian artist Oscar Muñoz, “Muñoz designs his works to disintegrate, and it is precisely through that process of decomposition that they fulfill themselves and become purely conceptual entities” (Castro, pg.8). Castro explains that Muñoz uses ephemeral art to complete his message through it, often about the issues of violence that happened in Colombia. Embracing the nature of ephemeral art as a reflection of our world is not only a clever way to add meaning to the fragility and dissolving nature of ephemeral art, but also what inspired my own ephemeral piece.

When it comes to this type of art, some artists choose to create something that eventually will disappear in nature. This makes the viewer appreciate the artwork and become present with it, as it will only exist for a period of time. In some ways, this approach also works with the disappearing aspect of ephemeral art, but it focuses on the existence of the piece, even if it is just for a moment. The idea behind my piece is to work with the nature of destruction that comes with ephemeral art, and as Muñoz works, my piece acquires its meaning through its destruction.

My idea is about a polar bear mother with its cub being surrounded by glaciers as the background. I made this piece with white salt, and then “melted” it with hot water. This serves as a metaphor for Antarctica melting down because of global warming. It relates to the global impact of the modern way of living, from humans impacting our home earth and the environment, as well as my own personal care for the environment. I find myself not doing much for the environment as I would like to, maybe because of the feeling of doom and feeling that I can’t really do much with my own little life compared to big corporations’ major impact on the environment. I took advantage of the ephemeral concept to take the decay and disappearance even further by connecting it with our own “disappearing world”. This is a small metaphor for the real phenomenon happening on our planet. I did not intend it to be a realistic depiction of the melting glaciers, as the water is also supposed to make "its own art" of whatever salt remains leaves behind. The water represents destruction and chaos from humanity's greed and evil, which causes innocent lives and nature to be erased.

My artwork intends to remind people of the problem we are facing in the world because of global warming, by showing a more brutal representation of it. We often underestimate this issue, as we don’t see the effects of global warming immediately. Antarctica’s glaciers are bigger than my representation of them, and melt at a slower rate, so in our busy lives, we don’t get to worry about that often. I think the brutality of how rapidly my representation of the melting Antarctica is destroyed shows that it is a problem we, the whole world, should actively find solutions for.

Cited Work

Castro, Fernando. “MUÑOZ & MUNIZ.” Houston’s FotoFest Took Place during March, 2002. Aperture, no. 170, 2003, pp. 6–8. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24473042. Accessed 6 May 2026.