Imaging Antarctica
Imaging Antarctica was an international traveling exhibition in 1984-86 created by Rachel Weiss to explore images and ideas about Antarctica. It involved some forty artists from around the world like Lowery Burgess (USA), Robert Smithson (USA), Nancy Holt (USA), Mel Alexenberg (Israel), Joseph Yoakum (USA), Herbert Ponting (England), Wolfgang Hahn (BRD), Jose Bedia Valdes (Cuba), Thorbjorn Lausten (Denmark), Marjorie Agosin (Chile). The exhibition started at the Stadtmuseum, Linz, Austria in 1986, and traveled to many museums and galleries around the world.
My piece consisted of a telephone transcript of a conversation with Antarctic researchers during the ceremony of celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty on December 1, 1984, from the New Zealand base in Antarctica. I then made a suite of drawings based on the conversation and displayed the drawings and transcript. Below is my text for the catalog of the exhibition.
Antarctican
Imagery and information about Antarctica reaches the reset of the world for the most part through scientific networks and mass media. Experience of the continent is vicarious, most of us only touch pictures. Although we are limited in understanding Antarctica through these secondary impressions, the situation does allow an entire continent to remain in considerate, thoughtful hands. Rather than advertise a wilderness to be explored and possibly abused, scientific visual data says "know what you are doing here".
This media paradox interests me. To know a world through images in order to preserve it.
I wanted to make direct connection to someone in Antarctica. I thought that date generated from scientific research relayed to an artist would create a sharing stewardship across disciplinary lines, science/art.
By passing images through another country (New Zealand was of special interest because of its suggestion to make Antarctica into a "park" for scientific research) a collaborative spirit among world artists would demonstrate a kinship with international scientific research.
Making hand-made images in relation to electronic communication would create a metaphor for direct experience. "Where the hand has been" need not be a signal for potential environmental abuse. Rather, as in the case of concerned science and art, the touching of the planet can be a positive caress.
Speaking Antarctican
I made direct contact with Keith Clegg, Information Officer for the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in October of 1984 by simply calling him from my home, a wonder in itself, using information supplied by Rachel Weiss. The idea was to make a call between the New Zealand base ( the oldest in Antarctica) and the Imaging Antarctica Exhibition. The event would commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty on December 1, 1984.
Rachel also told me to get in touch with Greenpeace in Washington, DC and found out about their Antarctic Project as well. I talked to Jim Barnes at some length about the political situation and about the new treaty. The reality seemed to be that Antarctica was about to be carved into power spheres by nations ready to exploit scientific research for access to resources. I asked Bob Thomson, director of New Zealand's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research about that via radio-telephone from the New Zealand base in Antarctica:
Davis: How do you feel about the treaty situation, the political situation, being a sort of world model for getting along with each other?
Thomson: Well, I think yes - that's very true - in fact I'll be saying those precise words later this afternoon in my little speech that I'll be making there - that the Antarctic Treaty has been entirely successful - especially in the field of insuring that people from all nations working in the Antarctic can work together in a full sphere of cooperation. It doesn't matter what country one comes from - we're all together down here - we're Antarcticans in the real sense of the word and rarely refer to the political scene back at home where there are differences between the countries operating down here - I think its an indication that people themselves when they get together and have a common interest can respond very well and work very closely together. All of us who have been involved over the years have developed a very, very close friendship with our colleagues in other parts of the world. The Antarctic Treaty has been highly successful in bringing together a wide range of people from many different countries and I'm very, very confident that will proceed in the future years to develop even more widely as additional countries accede to the Antarctic Treaty.
In a world of terror and confused political/religious horror, Thomson's voice over that fragile radio-telephone connection seemed to have real clarity, purpose.
We were speaking Antarctican.