Planet on the Grill: Unique Climate Change Exhibition Marks 29 Years Since the UK Transferred Antarctic Station to Ukraine
Today, 6 February, marks the 29th anniversary of the handover of the Faraday Antarctic Station, now called Akademik Vernadsky, to Ukraine from the UK. To mark this anniversary, an unusual exhibition on climate change is opening in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. This is a joint Ukrainian-Peruvian exhibition with the symbolic title Planet on the Grill: Vulnerable Worlds of the Antarctic and Amazon. It combines photos from two ecosystems with opposite temperatures: the hot Amazonian forests and the icy Antarctic.
The exhibition will last until 6 March 2025 at the Kyiv Cultural and Art Centre of NaUKMA. The entrance is free.
The exhibition consists of 36 photographs. They are placed in pairs, because the dissimilar Amazon and Antarctica have a lot in common: human impact on nature, vulnerable species and incredible beauty 🫶
The exhibition is intended to sound the alarm, as both types of ecosystems have been irreversibly changing recently. The record drought in the Amazon rainforest and the melting of glaciers in the Antarctic are ‘symptoms’ of the same disease - climate change.
The images will show exactly what is happening to ecosystems and how local plants and animals are responding.
The author of the Amazon photos is Fredy F. Ramirez, a researcher at the National University of the Peruvian Amazon. Most of the photos were taken during 2024.
The authors of the Antarctic photos are Ukrainians who worked on the icy continent in different periods of 2019-2024.
The organisers of the exhibition from Ukraine are the National Antarctic Science Centre, the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Peru, the Embajada de Ucrania en la República del Perú, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and the Cultural and Artistic Centre of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. From Peru, the National University of the Peruvian Amazon (UNAP) and the Awaken Centre.
On 6 February 1996, a new page in Ukrainian science was opened. The United Kingdom handed over the Faraday station to Ukraine, which became the first and so far the only Antarctic base of an independent state, Osvitoria writes.
Renamed in honour of the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Volodymyr Vernadsky, the station opened up unique scientific horizons for Ukrainian scientists.
The British handed over the Faraday station free of charge. However, during the change of flags on 6 February, the first Ukrainian base commander Gennady Milinevsky symbolically handed over £1 to the British. This coin was embedded in the tabletop of the Faraday bar at the station. Today, it can be seen as a reminder of this historic event.
