Defrosting the freezer is topped as an undesirable household chore only by ‘unblocking the plughole’ and ‘eliminating black mould’. But with Bojan Šarčević’s installations, the eventual removal of huge chunks of ice from a set of freezers will probably be worth it.
Using farmed ice crystals, the Belgrade-born artist has filled the industrial units with a mass of solid white frost that, thanks to the humidity of the gallery, with continue to grow throughout the exhibition’s run. Inside are transducer speakers reliant on solid or liquid particles to transmit a soundtrack of ’80s pop hits.
And that, as Jennifer Aniston used to say in the L’Oréal ad, is the science bit. The art bit is this: despite their functional casings, the dense snowy chunks are like the insides of snow globes – glittering ice palaces waiting for a tiny Elsa to totter through amid a flurry of shaken-up snowflakes.
In some places the ice is starting to melt, forming cold water lakes. In others, frosty stalagmites shoot up from the solid white base.
There’s also the faint scent that freezers emit and the Pavlovian response it triggers. Because unless you work in a cryopreservation lab, opening a freezer normally means something good is about to come out of it – like ice lollies, or pizza. So you get this almost imperceptible whiff of temperature-controlled storage units and BAM! You’re eight years old and stealing a Fab.
Which sounds bonkers as a response, but Šarčević’s artworks are semi-nostalgic. Nostalgic but also aware that the ’80s were an era of turmoil. The semi-melting ice could be a reference to the Cold War dripping towards a close and the rise of mass consumerism – that rampant shopping culture allowing people to purchase more and more household goods, such as freezers, and stuff them with shiny, colourful boxes. Cornettos and consumerism: chilling.