Immersed

The place I was born now sits 90 metres in the air, hovering in space over the middle of an open-cut coal mine.

With this as a starting point, it is no surprise that the use of fossil fuels and their effects on people and the climate should hold my focus.

Combine this with an absolute love of cold landscapes, and Immersed Svalbard is the result. A pictorial story of discovery. Of seeing life in the arctic through a 10 week artist’s residency at the Spitsbergen Artists Center in Svalbard, high in the Norwegian arctic – a beautiful unique location that also sits at the very face of climate change.

While the focus of the artworks, sketches and photography will be climate change, these changes not only create devastating impacts for nature, the environment and landscapes. They also change communities and lives and human eco systems. As it happens, step by step, it is important those changes are recorded, especially as Svalbard has a largely transient population.

So this is a combination of art and research. Documenting and illustrating arctic life, exploring the landscape and meeting scientists, artists, writers, researchers and the residents of Svalbard.

While focusing on the majestic beauty and wonder of Svalbard and the arctic, its strength and fragility, the detail will be on people living with, and working to solve, climate challenges in this beautiful vast landscape. How do the people of Svalbard view this sense of change and potential loss, while also not being singularly defined by climate change? How is their environment and community changing?

This is a story of people and place. Of science and life stories. Equal parts exploring the landscape and meeting the people of Svalbard. A personal illustrated representation of life in the arctic. To show what could be lost, and what must be saved.

You’re invited along to experience this unique and beautiful location – so, on with your hat and scarf and let’s go...