Blue Green is an installation by Tapio Mäkelä, shown at Rauma Balticum Biennale, What’s Up Sea, Mitämeri exhibition at Rauma Art Museum, Finland, June 12th – September 19th.
Blue green algae grow in the tank containing seawater from Rauma archipelago for the duration of the exhibition. Micro controllers adjust the level of nutrients (Phosphorus, Nitrogen), CO2 and oxygen optimal for the algae. During the exhibition, new samples of algae are introduced to the tank.
Cyanobacteria aka blue green algae are considered as a symptom of the worsening condition of the Baltic Sea. The more phosphorus from agriculture and sewage ends up to the marine ecosystem the better off blue green algae are. The aesthetic impact of blue green algae floats at sea and the limits they may set to human exploitation of the sea also reveal ways in which humans relate with nature as a leisure commodity. The hated blue green algae were, however, a vital species for first creating life on Earth as it produced the oxygen needed for the formation of our atmosphere.
Almost nationally owned Finnish energy company Neste produces bio diesel at its Singapore refinery out of palm oil that originates from subcontractors from Malaysia and Indonesia. The price of ”blue green” diesel is a rapid destruction of rain forests especially in the Borneo district of Kalimantan. Deforestation and decay of its peat land is responsible for 4 percent of annual global C02 emissions. Also impact of the plantations on the social and cultural life of local communities is significant.
What if the entire Baltic Sea would be filled with blue green algae and form a green lung producing hydrogen? Would this transformation of the Baltic Sea into a pool of biomass in the name of green energy be ethically questionable?
If you make an environmental mess while producing “green” energy, you should make it in your own back yard.