Simon Faithfull
An Arts Catalyst Touring Exhibition
Curated by Lisa Le Feuvre
Ice Blink is a term referring to a white glare that appears on the underside of low clouds in sub-zero sea conditions, indicating the presence of ice beyond the range of vision, and warning ships to be on guard.
Artist Simon Faithfull was invited to travel to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey as part of The Arts Council’s International Fellowships Programme. Departing from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire he travelled on to the Falklands via Ascension Island, where he joined scientists on board the ice-strengthened ship RSS Ernest Shackleton. On its way south to Antarctica, the ship broke its way through expanses of sea-ice, passing icebergs, ice cliffs and uninhabited islands heading for the science-fiction-like Halley Research Station perched on stilts above the empty, white wilderness. Surrounded by inhospitable conditions outside of the vessel the crew within lived their own set conventions and references that had developed over years of exploration, independent of the changing society in the external world.
Ice Blink is an exhibition of work from this incredible journey; daily drawings made on a palm pilot etched onto glass; a poetic film of a whaling station populated with seals, photographs that defy perceptions of scale; films of the view through the porthole redolent with a Sokurov-like quality of light; experiments with weather balloons; and a performative lecture highlighting the myths of Antarctica and the realities of how the climate change has shifted this archetypal remote location.
Antarctica is a mythical location that has captured the imagination of many, and whose reality defies known perceptions of scale and experience. It is the location where the effects of global warming can be physically experienced and where the remote becomes an identifiable place. Antarctica is a site tied up with a sense of British identity: a territory far from these shores that conjures legends of great explorers and journeys.
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The Antarctica series is an incredible body of work that is filled with a poetics and politics of space, place, and perceptions.
18 March - 14 May 2006, Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
1 - 30 April 2006, Cell, London, UK
8 April - 8 May 2006, Parker's Box, New York, US
21 April 2006, Society of Antiquaries, London, UK - Lecture-performance by Simon Faithfull.
Ice Blink: An Antarctic Essay is published by Book Works and The Arts Catalyst in April. Available from Book Works 020 7247 2203 www.bookworks.org.uk.
Simon Faithfull Interview in Time Out by Sarah Kent
Guardian Arts – Simon Faithfull’s Antarctica Diary