Documents from Antarctica

This paper investigates the history of human settlement on Antarctica from the perspective of an artist engaged in research-creation. It accompanies a body of artwork entitled "Documents from Antarctica," which uses found photographs and papers as the source material for installation and photo-based images. This paper engages in a reading of the material culture used in my art practice as both documents and objects in the round. The result is a series of written vignettes that trace the development of Antarctic geopolitics, climate change and the Anthropocene, historiography of the South Pole, and art history from the Second World War through to the present. Collections and archival methodologies are investigated as a primary means by which humans understand and define themselves – responding to the conditions of their social and geographic surroundings through making, building, and recording. Unpacking the past and present contexts of material culture used in Documents from Antarctica results in a reflection on Antarctica as a highly mediated space, with an increasing socio-cultural presence in the Anthropocene.