Walking in Antarctica (2015—)

Project Description
The photographs and sculpture are inspired and informed by my experiences as a grantee of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. I returned from Antarctica with a rich cache of raw material, creating the archival pigment prints, sculpture and an accompanying narrative. Walking in Antarctica, a solo exhibition selected from this material, premiered in 2017 at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, and is touring the U.S. from 2022 to 2027 through ExhibitsUSA the traveling exhibition rental service of the Mid-Atlantic Arts Alliance. View the latest Tour Schedule.

The images surprise visitors with vivid depictions of richly articulated and colorful environments that counter the common perception of a bleak, white wasteland. The sculptures offer an opportunity to experience the unique polar ice and rock formations from different vantage points as objects in space and are the first, and thus far only, such sculptural works of the Antarctic landscape.

For the last two months of 2015, I worked out of remote Antarctic scientific field camps and had access to protected areas that can only be entered with government permits or in the company of a skilled mountaineer. Insights from my research and interactions with scientists enhanced her experience of nature during her residency. I returned with some 5,000 photographs and recorded my experiences in an online journal. Since then, I have been turning that rich cache of raw material into archival pigment prints, sculpture, and an accompanying narrative. I received funds to produce Walking in Antarctica from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance Rubys Awards, funded by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, and from the Puffin Foundation, Teaneck, NJ.

Audio tour: Audio tour originally accompanying my Goucher College exhibition Walking in Antarctica, that combines personal narrative with sound effects to add an immersive multimedia component to the experience of viewing the art. Accessed by visitors via Wi-Fi in the gallery with their cell phones, the audio clips recount the journeys to these places, interactions with scientists and support personnel, vignettes of field camp life, sensory impressions, and technical information about the process of making the sculptures. See also an online 3D walkthrough of the installation at Fairfield University Art Museum with links to the audio clips.

Video: Shows the process of making one of the sculptures, hosted on YouTube (running time 2:50).

Press: Links to features and interviews about the project that have appeared on Vice Media's Creators Project; the Atlas Obscura and the Cloud Appreciation Society's websites; in print in various publications including Issues in Science and Technology, the magazine of the National Academy of Sciences, and Adobe 99U; and on WYPR, Baltimore's news-talk National Public Radio station.

Past exhibitions: Download CV from this page for complete listing of solo and group exhibitions of this project.

Antarctica journal entries: Record of my experiences, entered as blog posts from November 15, 2015 to April 1, 2016.

Please inquire to purchase, commission, or exhibit work, or to schedule a public presentation or workshop.