We use the cookies _ga, _gat, _gid to collect anonymous data about how you use this site. OK.
How Ironic To Live in Fear of Terrorism and Die Because of Climate Change, 2006
How Ironic To Live in Fear of Terrorism and Die Because of Climate Change
was commissioned in 2006 by the Campaign Against Climate Change.
This work is the only example of unsanctioned guerilla projection in Firrell's body of work. It soon became apparent that working in this way would impose its own limits on showing work in the future - one can only transgress so often.
The gradual migration of the artist's practice onto digital billboards, in collaboration with the global out of home industry, was a conscious, utilitarian choice to reach the largest possible number of people, regularly, over a sustained period of time.
The context of
How Ironic To Live in Fear of Terrorism and Die Because of Climate Change
was the growing fear of terrorism in the early 2000s as a consequence of the West's illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The artwork contrasts that fear with the then-less-acutely-felt threat of climate change. The irony has only become greater as the world reaps the results of both terrorism and illegal war, and doing little or nothing to stem the man-made causes of both.