Vienna Art Week 2019





Global Players, Global Warmers and Climate Sinners gathered around one table on November 20, gambling for nothing less than the climate crisis. As part of the Vienna Art Week 2019, students of the Social Design Studio of the University of Applied Arts Vienna turned the k48 into a fiery gambling den.

At November 20, visitors of the k48 were invited into the glamorous lobby of the Climate Casino, where they were served with delicious Signature Drinks and exquisite Croutons. A mysterious door was promised to lead into a secret room full of glitter, glamour and adrenaline. But to enter, the guests were confronted with a first challenge: they had to question the wheel of fortune first. The wheel itself decided, in which role they could slip into. Who was lucky enough to become one of the global players like the WTO, Fridays for Future or even Leonardo diCaprio, was allowed to enter the mysterious gambling hall. The unlucky ones that got to play the role of climate losers like native american peasants or Somalia, could only redeem themselves by confessing a climate sin into the book of sins. Only then, they got another chance to question the wheel.
Once the guest finally entered the Casino, the game was easy: betting on gemstones, the gamblers let fortuna decide who was the biggest climate sinner. Inspired by reality, the biggest sinners won precious CO2s. A professional Croupier was borrowed from Kärntner Straße to fulfill his duty of escorting the furious mass through the night. A simple exclamation like “You killed a cow by accident” could mean one person’s ruin, meanwhile another gambler won a fortune, because he “flew to New York to go shopping over the long weekend”.
Soon, the atmosphere was heated up, sweat ran through the air – this evening everyone was infected by the gamble fever. The few strong-nerved gamblers that remained in the end could finally exchange their hard-won CO2s against exotic prices: Quinoa from Peru, coconut water from the Philippines and red wine from Australia was waiting for them to be consumed.
And in the end, it was once again proved: the sinner takes it all.





Croupiers and Croûtons – The Climate Casino from Sophie Bösker on Vimeo.