The first line of T.S. Eliot’s seminal modernist poem “The Waste Land” is a prickly reversal of the first line in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, turning April from a month of healing to one of cruelty. It is in that vibrating tension that Wasteland, a climate-focused art park in Skellefteå in northeastern Sweden, lives; the park, which opened on May 28, aims to expose, nurture, and even satirize conversations around global climate change.

Wasteland sits on the banks of the Skellefte River in Scharins, a once-highly polluted industrial area that has recently undergone a sanitization and transformation that both confronts and subverts its Byzantine history. Known as Guldstaden (“Gold Town”) for its gold mines, the city’s current major industries include copper mining and lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing. Not exactly the spot you’d expect green dreams to flourish; you’d be more likely to find Blinky the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons. But the climate park is recasting the site with temporary art exhibitions, an observation tower created in collaboration with the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and—its central landmark—a sauna designed by renowned Swedish art duo Bigert & Bergström, made of gleaming magenta, titanium-plated steel and emerging from the ground in the shape of a giant cluster of lithium crystals.

Taking into consideration Wasteland’s core mantra, “from waste to promise,” Mats Bigert and Lars Bergstrom designed Crystal Sauna with their signature sense of playful nuance, creating layers of interpretation and discovery (not unlike Eliot’s poem, or Blinky’s eyes). “The lithium crystal represents the lithium-ion factory, of course,” says Bigert. “But there’s also the visual element of fragmentation. The discussion of these topics is so fragmented. Then there’s the contrast between the interior and exterior. The outside is hard, shiny, aggressive. The inside is embracing, warm, and natural.”

The lithium crystal has multiple streams of inspiration, Bigert says, noting that it’s both a reference to the once-polluted land on which the sauna stands, as well as a look at our understanding of what sauna culture offers in terms of both physical and mental health. “Lithium, as a medicine, is important for mental health, so that’s one layer of meaning. There’s also the aspect of how people use crystals; lithium crystals are meant to bring a sense of peace and reduce anxiety. Then there’s the environmental impact of lithium mining and batteries, which is connected to the land the sauna sits on. So you can really keep digging for meaning,” says Bigerts.

Leave it to Bigert & Bergström to hold up a mirror to the area’s sordid past while still having a little fun; after all, it’s been their M.O. for the last 40 years. They met as students and began collaborating on projects that addressed climate change, but their work only started to take more of an activist bent as the topic became more politicized. Before the Wasteland sauna they made Solar Egg, a 2017 Kubrickian installation that sits on the frigid landscape of Mount Luossabacken in Kiruna, northern Sweden. Both the egg and the crystals provide a gathering space to reflect on the rebirth of a landscape surrounding an industrial community.

Growing up going to saunas with his father, Mats understands how sauna culture can offer a moment of reset for both the self, as well as the community. “There’s something intergenerational about saunas. I remember all these broad-backed, older men gathering to talk politics or sports. Yes, saunas are a place to be quiet and meditative, but also a place to gather. It’s vulnerable—you’re basically getting naked and meeting other naked people, sweating together in a cave. That’s quite primitive.”

The Wasteland sauna can hold up to 18 people, and asks 1000 SEK (about $100 USD) per two hour visit. “I hope people will enjoy it, and at the same time consider the questions that Wasteland addresses in terms of climate change, the environment, and our impact on these things as humans,” Bigert says.

Weaving these strands together—the purpose of saunas, the participatory experience of the visitors, and the overall aim of Wasteland—could be intimidating to artists who are less comfortable with liminal spaces, especially ones that are increasingly politically charged. But Bigert & Bergström’s sauna allows us to unfurl and attend to the many creases and pleats of the understanding we have of climate change, without giving directives about how we should feel.

Eliot ends “The Waste Land” with imperatives from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the sacred Hindu text:

“Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih”

It translates to, “Give. Sympathize. Control. Peace peace peace.” A grounding incantation for your journey through Wasteland to the pulsing wooden center of this installation, where meaning is as open to interpretation as a room full of steam.

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