October 12, 2024

The trip to Leipzig’s Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst (GfZK) for the Things That Were Are Things Again exhibition, organized for nGbK members, was not officially part of SALT. CLAY. ROCK. Nevertheless, since it was a visit to a sustainably produced exhibition, we joined. The nGbK director, our shared climate officer, and our cocurator responsible for exhibition production used the opportunity—sitting undisturbed in the train’s dining car—to make a final decision regarding the material for the exhibition architecture. We had estimates for the global warming potential of various materials, including plaster, metal, fermacell, plasterboard, strawplates, and construction wood. The director of nGbK and the climate officer advocated for prioritizing strawplates, while the curator proposed incorporating lightweight metal structures. After reviewing the numbers, we concluded that the average result would be close to climate-neutral or would require only minimal compensation. For the mobile units, we chose black HPL (high-pressure laminate), which is not an environmentally friendly material due to its use of formaldehyde-containing adhesives. Our strategy to justify this choice was based on reusability: We did not lacquer or lime the surface and planned the construction in such a way that everything could simply be unscrewed and reused as raw material in a second life cycle. We also learned that after December 2024, Arqum would no longer allow us to include the biogenic impact of materials such as straw or wood in our carbon balance. This meant that the CO₂ these materials remove from the atmosphere will no longer be counted—resulting in a higher carbon footprint for the exhibition architecture.

The path to climate-neutral production definitely involves a process of trial and error.

PDF of excel table of CO₂ calculations.

Overall emissions related to the presentation of the artworks in the exhibition (production of exhibition display and artistic productions): 2558 kg CO₂e