Ice Board Highlights Global Warming

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As part of the Wavescapes Surf Art Exhibition, Bertish (on behalf of the Save Our Seas Foundation) has shaped a life-size surfboard sculpted entirely from ice which will be displayed at Depasco Café in Kloof Street, Cape Town, on Wednesday 9 December. Here it will melt as a visual poem that underlines the global warming crisis in a powerful way.

Save Our Seas Foundation presents the Wavescapes Surf Film festival and surfboard art exhibition as part of it communication strategy to create awareness of the devastation of the earth’s oceans. The SOSF also supports marine projects in the areas of conservation, research and education.

Conn Bertish, who has competed in five of the local Red Bull Big Wave Africa events, and together with his brothers is very involved in the South African surfing community, has worked on many environmental and social awareness campaigns. He recently won the Gold at The Panda Environmental Awards in Bristol for the Save Our Seas Foundation’s "Rethink the Shark" short films. The work also won at Cannes and garnered ‘Best PSA Film’ at this year’s International Wildlife Film Festival held in Montana, USA. Conn is passionate about creating interesting and provocative work that highlights important global issues in the public arena.

“As surfers we are literally on the frontline of global warming and the effect it is having on the ocean environment. I believe every surfer has a role to play in this most pressing issue.” Says Bertish. “The board of ice is a simple metaphor for what is a happening right now to all the world’s glaciers and ice caps. As this board melts so do our glaciers and million year old ice caps. So we each need to take stock of how our actions are affecting the increase in Global Warming. The board is a simple graphic reminder of this.”

The ice-board will be sculpted over two days by Bertish with Ice Art in a ice-preparation/ sculpting fridge in Cape Town, before being transported in two pieces to Depasco Café where it will be on display to the public.

Surfer comedian Mark Sampson will auction all the boards including the ice board on December 9. All proceeds go to NSRI and Shark Spotters.

The full line up of artists who created boards includes Andre Trantraal, Andy Mason, Anton Kannemeyer, Brett Murray, Conrad Botes, Gabby Raaff, Justin Fiske, Kim Longhurst, Nathan Trantraal, Richard Hart, Ross Turpin, Scott Robinson and Sue Opperma. They all decorated identical “Pipeline teardrop guns” made famous by Hawaiian Gerry Lopez in the early 1970s. To attend the auction or to place a reserve on any of the boards, email chris@wavescape.co.za or call 079 0260 669.