Humans have a crucial Achilles heel: Our brains are wired to be tribal and to think only in the seasonal short term. Processes like land degradation, extinction, population explosion or destruction of ecosystems progress slowly over a long time span. Depicting such processes provides us with the opportunity to change the conditions leading to a gradual destabilisation of ecosystems.

The displayed art concept has the aim to illuminate scientific data and processes through a medium that can move us in a way that statistics cannot. The concept is not merely to illustrate scientific theories or to make researchers’ results more attractive in terms of presentation, but to critically engage with them. The work tries to convey the impact on these vulnerable landscapes, as opposed to their devastation, to inspire viewers to help protect and preserve them.

The concept involves eight topics (e.g. land erosion, land defragmentation, desertification, change of precipitation due to climate change) were each topic is represented by three illustrations covering these topics. Besides the classical artwork descriptions, for each topic, a QR Code is provided which contains additional scientific information for the interested observer.