Olafur Eliasson: why I'm sailing Arctic icebergs into Paris

It was meant to be a comment on climate change. But now, by sailing 12 pieces of ice from Greenland and placing them in the Place de la Ri(C)publique, the artist is hoping to restore the numbed feelings of a city in shock

It was planned as a wake-up call to one crisis, but it is sailing towards the heart of another. A mass of ice harvested from Greenland is currently on its way to Paris, where it is due to be installed on Place de la Ri(C)publique on 29 November to mark the UN climate change conference COP 21. "The blocks are in freezer containers normally used to ship shrimps from Greenland," says Olafur Eliasson, the Danish-Icelandic artist behind Ice Watch Paris.

He imagined the work as a way of making the fragility and decay of the Arctic visible, not to mention tangible: "You stand in front of the ice, and then you can touch it." Now, it also feels like a strange and unexpected homage to Paris itself.