Elusive Earth: Refined Images of Antarctica
10 November, 2015 - 24 January, 2016
Main Galleries
Megan Jenkinson, Atmospheric Optics XII (2015), Digital inkjet print on Hahnemuhle photo-rag paper
Elusive Earth: Refined Images of Antarctica features representations of Antarctica by seven contemporary New Zealand artists, who have travelled to the continent: Anne Noble, Phil Dadson, Megan Jenkinson, Joyce Campbell, Laurence Aberhart, Jae Hoon Lee and Joseph Michael (ordered by initial year of travel). Six of the artists travelled with assistance from Antarctica New Zealand - Antarctic Arts Fellows under the Artists to Antarctica Programme and the Invited Artists Programme. Joseph Michael is the most recent artist to Antarctica from this group. He travelled independently in early 2015 with his own support crew, and backing from various bodies including the Arts Trust.
Jae Hoon Lee, The Dry Valley (2012), Digital photography lightbox
Over several decades, artists practising in many different fields (painters, poets, jewellers, ceramicists, etc) have been inspired by their journeys to Antarctica. Peter McIntyre OBE is regarded as a ‘pioneer’ NZ artist to have travelled to the Southern Continent, in the late 1950s. Curatorial selection for Elusive Earth was made from work by a group of contemporary artists who have represented Antarctica in photography or video with sound. Medium is an underlining thread for this exhibition in one sense. However, depictions of Antarctica by this group show multiple ideas and concerns associated with the continent.
The Elusive Earth is Antarctica, its own particular ambiguities. Do we consider this continent as a place of legend or history, or more in regards to pertinent issues of the present? Historically, Antarctica is unique: full exploration occurred only in the 20th Century with some sightings and landings during the 18th and 19th centuries. The expeditions in the early 20th century have now become folklore: Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and most notably R. Falcon Scott’s ill-fated journey of 1910-1912. It is one of the few places on earth with no indigenous peoples or inhabitants with close ancestral ties. The continent has its own distinctive political structure as a result of the Antarctic Treaty of 1961; a division in to territories administered by different nation states – not only is it owned by no single power, and where military exercises are forbidden, it is also only to be administered for the advancement of science. Could this be the vision of a political utopia, an apercu of an Enlightenment project? However the science yet returns something ominous: we can regard present-day Antarctica as being in a precarious state, a focal point for increasingly prevalent environmental concerns. It has a fragile ecosystem showing the effect of Climate Change and annual increases in tourism. The prospects are dim when we also consider our thirst for oil, with a requisite for new sites of exploration. The continent is placed in future doubt, but there is still much hope.
What does Antarctica mean to us? The artists in Elusive Earth do not provide clear answers but rather pose Antarctica as a point of enquiry. Their approach to the subject is disparate but collectively they can be regarded as artists-explorers – each mediating an experience of Antarctica. They have travelled and present samples, specimens, for engagement. These are refined, re-touched and re-treated visions, projections on the great white wall of abutting ice, a dream of something where the Earth itself remains elusive.
In her exhibition opening event Antarctic Shopping Party of 2008, Anne Noble presented the ice landscape as a commodity, something that is almost tangible: CDs, inflatable balls, puzzles, etc. Noble’s reference to present-day tourism recalls a long-held tradition - the appointment of artists to depict remote far-off lands in order to entice people to settle. A prime example in the early European settlement of New Zealand was Charles Heaphy (1820-1881) and the New Zealand Company. Heaphy’s scenes presented pre-Treaty era New Zealand in a very positive light, as readily hospitable; with no certain veracity.
Jae Hoon Lee and Megan Jenkinson, in their photographs of Antarctica, utilize image manipulation so that what is initially observed and photographed is transformed by the artist in to a different image. The digitally collaged image is signature to Jae Hoon Lee’s practice. In many of his works natural features, such as snow and rock faces, are altered subtly or overtly in to new patterns or forms.
Megan Jenkinson’s creative involvement in her Antarctic images entailed re-creating an aurora effect. Rather than something captured by the camera and actually observed in Antarctica, these auroras were produced in the studio (with the aid of curtains and lighting) and transposed on actual images of Antarctic landscapes.
A view of Antarctica’s past, particularly exploration, is a prominent subject of concern in Laurence Aberhart’s series of 2010 created from his trip to the continent. These photos present details taken from the interiors of the huts of Shackleton and Hillary; providing a sense of lived experience – articulated further by Aberhart’s use of black and white photography. Phil Dadson also refers to the heroic explorer in his audio-video work Terra Incognita (2005), featuring the interior of Scott’s hut. As a three channel work, the two outer screens depict footage taken inside the hut, with the central screen presenting a shadowy figure trudging through ice and snow. Wafting strains of national anthems conjure up notions of pride and conquest in reference to the many nations associated with the continent. There is a hark to the past in Joyce Campbell’s photographs Last Light 1 and Last Light 2, (2006). Her use of black and white photography refers to earlier forms of the medium. The darkness of these images form an effect where the Antarctic landscape seems very foreign – almost as moonscapes.
Joseph Michael travelled to Antarctica for a three week period in February 2015 aboard a 23 metre (75 foot) sailing yacht, accompanied by an eight person production crew. During the trip down the western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, Joseph observed and documented various icebergs (capturing still images, video and sound bites). Each iceberg was given a name as homage to figures that Joseph admired from the present or past. His practice of classifying nature evokes that of past exploration - the naming of places by Captain Cook for instance. Classification can also be regarded in the Western constructs of Museology and Science, where all things are categorized and ordered. The icebergs become signifiers for major concerns of our time, particularly Climate Change, where all information gathered and made available to the public is invaluable.