Melt Down - A moment in time
Whyte Museum
Banff, Alberta
2025
In honour of the 2025 United Nations International Year of Glaciers' Preservation, MELTDOWN showcases a powerful collection of artworks focusing on glacial landscapes by Jim Elzinga, Roger Vernon, Tiffany Shaw, and Leanne Allison.
The Columbia Icefield is a crowning glory in the Canadian Rockies and the bellwether for the rapid deglaciation altering our world. It sits astride the Continental Divide on the border of British Columbia and Alberta, Canada and is critical to the northern hemisphere's water supply. Twelve of the highest mountains in the Canadian Rockies encircle the Icefield, massive enduring sentinels, like guardians protecting the Icefield and the six major glaciers it feeds.
This exhibition emerges from the work of Guardians of the Ice, a nonprofit organization focussed on climate awareness. The artworks in Meltdown reveal the staggering scale of glacial presence in Canada. Beyond ensuring reliable water supply and food security, glaciers are deep storehouses of knowledge about Earth's past. When we open these storehouses, we learn that glaciers are the cold fuse that prevents global climate systems from overheating. In their rapid departure, the glaciers tell us that climate warming could get away from us and lead to irreversible heat impacts on all life on Earth.
Meltdown showcases a powerful collection of artworks that draw viewers deep into the heart of the mountains and glaciers of the Icefield. This exhibition marks the grand opening of Canada's participation in the 2025 United Nations International Year of Glaciers' Preservation. The United Nations has declared the International Year to raise awareness of the critical role that alpine glaciers play while highlighting the social and economic consequences of their loss. Meltdown invites us to recognize our impact - through individual and collective actions - on these vital systems.
Images courtesy of The Whyte. Photos by Katie Goldie