A Year Without a Summer

1816 became known as “the year without a summer”. After the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, a vast cloud of ash and dust darkened the sun, and temperatures in Europe and North America fell to record lows. Since the Industrial Revolution, humankind itself has been changing the colour of the sky, and we photograph it admiringly with our phones.

A Year Without a Summer launched the publication of the same name, published by DISTANZ Verlag, and was realised in collaboration with Galerie Heike Strelow and Pi (π) Art Project.

The exhibition brought together minimalist gradient paintings that reflect shifts in the colour of the sky and the presence of fine particulate matter, and photographic works documenting the illegal export of European plastic waste to Adana, Turkey. At its centre was a monumental carpet woven from plastic, conceived as a speculative proposal to take waste out of the cycles of production and disposal.

By combining aesthetic reduction with ecological urgency, the exhibition made tangible the often invisible forces shaping the atmosphere today: air pollution, global waste streams and the long-term consequences of climate change. It was accompanied by talks and events.