This afternoon I headed for Lake Ferguson (Tasersuatsiaq in Greenlandic), about a mile-long walk on a dirt road from where I’m staying. The forecast for 50% chance of snow flurries turned out to be accurate in an unexpected way, because sun and blue skies alternated with gray skies and light snow. This happened three times … Read More
Author: Helen1um
In Search of the Plane Wreck of ’68
A piece of an old ski lift I passed in search of a US Air Force T-Bird training plane that crashed nearby in 1968, and has been left essentially untouched. I went for what was supposed to be a short uphill walk to view it from a ridge. The ski lift was set up in … Read More
First Days in Kangerlussuaq
Above, a panorama photographed September 6, 2021, looking southeast from the outskirts of Kangerlussuaq at the hill that dominates that view. Below are two vintage photographs from the Danish Arctic Institute, both taken between September 1950 and July 1951 by a Danish Navy conscript named Bent Helmudt, who was stationed here when it was a … Read More
Of COVID, Copenhagen, and Colonialism
Kangerlussuaq is called Sondre Strømfjord on this 1957 map of Greenland on display on the ground floor of the Arktisk Institut. The map emphasizes the Danish colonial names in bold lettering, with Greenlandic names present, but in a much smaller font. Those Danish names went by the wayside in 1996 and today you won’t see … Read More
Capturing a Changing Arctic Landscape
Kangerlussuaq sign in front of the former Danish Hotel in 1959 (left) and at its current location at the airport in 2018 when I was last there (right). Photo on left by J.E. Saaby-Hansen, Collection of Danish Arctic Institute. In the summer of 2018 I went on an educational tour of the Canadian Arctic and … Read More
Chasing Waterfalls in Brooklyn
I Am Water Billboard Exhibition One of my photos is now installed in the “I Am Water” outdoor billboard exhibition in the East Williamsburg-Bushwick neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Given the subject matter, it seems almost too literal that it’s at the intersection of Forrest Street and Flushing Avenue (134 Forrest St. to be exact). The photograph shows a … Read More
Article in Yale Climate Connections
Science and conservation journalist Kristen Pope interviewed me for her recent article Artists chronicle climate change in the Arctic and Antarctic, in Yale Climate Connections. Read it here. Pope also discusses the Antarctic Artists and Writers Collective, of which I am a founding member and talked with the curator of our online exhibition Adequate Earth: Artists and Writers in … Read More
Adequate Earth: Artists and Writers in Antarctica • Jan. 28-May 22, 2021
On January 28, 2021, the Antarctic Artists and Writers Collective launches its first online exhibition, Adequate Earth: Artists and Writers in Antarctica, which features works by 13 former participants of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program (AAWP). The exhibition runs through May 22, 2021, and will be accompanied by a series of … Read More
Announcing the Antarctic Artists & Writers Collective
One major bright spot during the pandemic of 2020 has been working with a dynamic group of artists, musicians, and writers to launch a new organization: the Antarctic Artists and Writers Collective. The process began on Labor Day Weekend, September 2019, when 13 past participants of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, … Read More
May we have A Show of Hands?
This is one of the 50 photographs in the online exhibition A Show of Hands on the website of the photography magazine Don’t Take Pictures, on view now through February 23, 2021. I photographed this exhibit in the Kangerlussuaq Museum on my trip to Greenland in 2018. Here’s a handy (ahem) direct link to the … Read More