Futile Efforts

Jiabao Li, 2025

From pumping seawater onto Arctic snow to thicken sea ice to draping Swiss glaciers with reflective blankets to slow their melt, humanity is spending vast resources trying to patch a planetary collapse with tiny, temporary bandages. If such measures can save the Arctic ice from disappearing, I can help too! Amid the sublime Arctic landscape, I carried out a series of absurd interventions: freezing melted glacier water and giving it back to the glacier, polishing an iceberg with a lens cleaner, sweeping a snowy mountain, cleaning sea ice with a window wiper, and draining the ocean with a coffee cup. These futile efforts pose a sharp question to contemporary geoengineering while revealing the fragile yet stubborn condition of human existence in the face of vast planetary change.

從將海水泵入北極積雪以增厚海冰，到為瑞士冰川披上反射毯以延緩融化，人類正耗費鉅資，試圖為一場全球性的崩塌貼上微小的補丁，杯水車薪。如果這些舉措真能挽救冰原，那麼我也能貢獻一己之力。我在北極那壯麗的景致中執行了一系列荒誕的介入：凍結融化的冰川水並歸還給冰川、給冰山剖光、為雪山掃雪、清潔海冰、用一只咖啡杯舀乾海洋。這些無用功既是對當代地球工程的尖銳詰問，也勾勒出人類在浩瀚變遷面前，那份既渺小又孤勇的生存狀態。