If speaking about climate change doesn’t seem to be as effective as it once was, it might be time to see it. In an attempt to remind us that earth’s glaciers are depleting by the hour, photographer and filmmaker James Balog used Swarovski crystals to create a visual comparison between the jewellery and the melting glaciers. The result is both beautiful and terrifying, and it was first exhibited in the Swarovski-sponsored installation Thinning Ice, at Design Miami in 2014.

James Balog has a long history in portraying vanishing glaciers. In his long-term photography project Extreme Ice Survey (2007), he stationed 28 cameras at 13 glaciers at Greenland, Iceland, the Nepalese Himalayas, Alaska and the Rocky Mountains of the US to create a stunning visual legacy of climate change effects. He also directed the documentary Chasing Ice, winning the award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.