The Dead Sea has the saltiest and most mineral-rich water in the world, with surface water having a salinity rate of 31.5% (approximately five to nine times higher compared to other ocean waters). Many visitors know about the fascinating buoyancy properties of this water, but one artist wanted to demonstrate the powerful natural forces of the Dead Sea.
Artist Sigalit Landau started a project of submerging clothing in the Dead Sea to see the crystallization effect on garments submerged in the heavily salted water. Landau began her project with one garment that was a replica of the traditional Hasidic garment worn by the character of Leah in the Yiddish play ‘The Dybbuk.’
Landau uses a unique structure to keep the materials underwater for the salt crystallization transformation that prevents resurfacing too soon. After two months, the black Hasidic garment was pulled out of the Dead Sea, revealing a completely transformed garment with massive white salt crystals covering the now stiff garment. Since the beginning of her project, Landau has evolved from garments to objects transformed into salty masterpieces of art.
Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. Carbon dioxide from human activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.