Holoscenes: Performers swim in giant glass tank for climate change awareness

Holoscenes is a six-hour underwater performance installation in which members of the Los Angeles-based Early Morning Opera struggle to perform daily tasks while the water levels rise inside the tank at Exchange Square, London.

The piece is inspired by the concern over the potential threat of future flooding in major cities and that our relationship with water is set to become a central issue of the 21st century. When inside the tank, the individuals attempt to perform daily routines such as dressing themselves, reading the paper or tuning a guitar. They do all of this while the water levels rise around them, making it increasingly difficult to perform such tasks, while viewers watch them struggle.

The performance uses water to represent the problems that our world is faced with, from rising seas, melting glaciers, searing droughts and flash flooding; revealing an apparently distant problem as a real and present danger. The piece, which is co-commissioned by the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, will be shown in conjunction with the London's Burning Festival. Performances are from 1-4 September at Exchange Square, London.