Xavier Cortada Art in Antarctica

Ice Paintings: Antarctic Sea Ice (ASI) Series

2007-03-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

Images of Ice Painting created by Miami artist Xavier Cortada in McMurdo Station, Antarctica using: Antarctic Sea Ice, sediment from the Antarctic Dry Valleys, acrylic paint, and gesso on paper, 12" x 9", 2007.

astrid

amundsen

balleny

bellingshausen

norvegia

porpoise

prydz

weddell

wilkins

wrigley

vincennes

ross

These works on paper were created by Cortada using samples given to him by scientists onsite during his 2006-2007 National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writers fellowship in Antarctica. Each piece in the series was titled after randomly selected names of coasts, bays and seas surrounding continent that inspired their creation.

For more information, please visit www.cortada.com/antarctica

These pieces will be available for purchase at the exhibit opening Saturday, March 10th at the Kunsthaus Contemporary Art Space, Wynwood Art District, 3312 N. Miami Avenue, Miami, FL. The solo exhibit runs through May 5th.

Ice Paintings: WAIS (Western Antarctic Ice Sheet) Series

2007-03-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

Ice Painting Series: Created using ice from the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), sediment from the Antarctic Dry Valleys, acrylic paint, and gesso on paper, 12" x 9", 2007.

ninnus

coman

shirase

hawkes

leverett

matusevich

mellor

slessor

takahe

totten

wade

wideroe

These works on paper were created by Cortada using samples given to him by scientists onsite during his 2006-2007 National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writers fellowship in Antarctica. Each piece in the series was titled after randomly selected names of glaciers and mountains on the continent that inspired their creation.

For more information, please visit www.cortada.com/antarctica.

Ice Paintings

2007-03-03T00:12:00.000-08:00

Miami artist Xavier Cortada created ice paintings in McMurdo Station, Antarctica using: Antarctic Sea Ice (ASI) or ice from the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), sediment from the Antarctic Dry Valleys, acrylic paint, and gesso on paper, 12" x 9", 2007.

These works on paper were created by Cortada using samples given to him by scientists onsite during his 2006-2007 National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writers fellowship in Antarctica. Each piece in the series was titled after randomly selected names of glaciers, mountains, coasts, bays and seas of the continent that inspired their creation.

To see ice paintings please see images above.

For more information, please visit www.cortada.com/antarctica

South Pole: The 150,000-Year Journey

2007-01-10T01:42:00.000-08:00

At the location of the Geographic South Pole 2007 marker, I planted a mangrove seedling from Miami's Biscayne Bay, 25°46'N 80°12'W. Embedded in the moving glacier, the "seedling" will begin sliding downhill ( 9.9 meters every year) in the direction of the Weddell Sea, 1,400 km away. The "seedling" will thus begin its 150,000 year journey towards the seashore, where theoretically it can eventually set its roots.
Through this piece, we are challenged to visualize what the world will look like in 152,007 A.D.--when the seedling, riding on the 3 km thick glacial ice sheet that blankets the South Pole, reaches the coast of Antarctica to set its roots. The "150,000-year Journey" project addresses the passage of time, asking us to see time in geologic instead of human time frames. To learn more about the 150,000-year Journey, please visit http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/journey.

In the South Pole

2007-01-05T03:30:00.001-08:00

On January 4, 2006, we boarded a C-130 Hercules and flew to the South Pole. Upon landing, we successfully implemented a series of art installations as part of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program:

The 150,000-year Journey: Exploring time in geological instead of human timeframes

The Markers: Commemorating 50 years of the US permanent presence in the South Pole

The Longitudinal Installation: Diminishing distance and man-made barriers

Endangered World: Focusing on endangered species and environmental threats

Wind Words: Connecting with one another

Antarctic Painting: Honoring Sir Ernest Shackleton, by permanently placing the Antarctic explorer's portrait in the South Pole, the place that eluded him in life.

Some of these installations will be included in a travelling exhibit sponsored by the United Nations Environmental Program. The international group show will be inaugurated in Oslo, Norway on June 5, 2007. For more information, see: http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/about.htm

South Pole: Endangered World

2007-01-05T03:18:00.000-08:00

Using acrylic paint diluted with Antarctic sea water, I painted 24 flags with the scientific name of species across Earth whose habitats are being destroyed by man. I also painted the habitat's longitude. I then placed those flags at their corresponding longitudal line around the South Pole. Unless we act to address issues of global climate change and ecosystem destruction, many of these banners will bear the name of extinct species.

To see the list of threatened/endangered animals or learn more about the installation, see http://www.cortada.com/endangered

South Pole: The Shackleton Painting

2007-01-05T03:06:00.000-08:00

Xavier Cortada, "Shackleton in the South Pole," mixed-media, 24" x 18", 2007. Created in McMurdo Station, Antarctica using canvas, acrylic paint, crushed Mt. Erebus crystals, soil samples from the Dry Valleys, soil samples from Ross Island, McMurdo Sound seawater, GIS maps of the Antarctic continent, copies of historic photographs and maps of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expeditions.

Presented on January 4, 2007 to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for permanent display, conceptually placing the great Antarctic explorer in the place that eluded him in life.

South Pole: The Markers

2007-01-05T02:54:00.001-08:00

On October 31, 1956, "Que Sera Sera" was the first plane to land at the South Pole. Two weeks later, a Navy Seabees construction crew arrived and started building the South Pole station. On January 4, 1957, they turned the South Pole base over to a team of nine scientists and nine support professionals (e.g.: a doctor, a cook) and a dog who wintered over and officially opened the base to scientific exploration.

On January 4, 2007, the 50th anniversary of the South Pole station, I planted 50 differently-colored flags along a 500-meter stretch of a moving ice sheet. The last flag was planted where South Pole stood in 1956, when the Pole became permanently inhabited. The first, where the South Pole stands fifty years later.

Each flag is marked with its respective year, and with the coordinates of a place on Earth I selected as important in "moving the world forward" during that year (e.g.: 1957 is Sputnik, 1963 is the March on Washington, 1969 in the Lunar Landing, 1997 is Kyoto) . To see the list and read more about the Marker's Project, visit http://www.cortada.com/markers.

The Marker flags were exhibited at the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium prior to being installed in the South Pole.

South Pole: The Longitudinal Installation

2007-01-04T20:48:00.000-08:00

The first installation at the South Pole was the Longitudinal Installation. Using quotes about the impact of climate change on people's lives captured from newspapers across the 24 time zones, I painted the approximate longitudes of the country in which the quote originated inside 24 shoes. To paint the shoes, I mixed my paint with soil samples from the Dry Valleys in Antarctica, one of the places on Earth most susceptible to climate change.

I then flew to the Pole and placed the 24 shoes in a circle along the South Pole, each aligned with its corresponding longitude as it converged on the South Pole. I then walked to the 0 degree longitude, the prime meridian, and walked clockwise around the pole, stopping at each shoe to recite each of the following quotes:

0 “There may be a move of wineries into the Pyrenees in the future.” --- Xavier Sort, technical director of Miguel Torres Wineries.

15E Switzerland: “Losses to insurers from environmental events have risen exponentially over the past 30 years, and are expected to rise even more rapidly still.” ---Pamela Heck, Insurance Industry Expert.

30E Zimbabwe: “We used to be able to grow everything we want but that has all changed.” – Matsapi Nyathi, Grandmother.

45E Turkey: “We are helpless. We're trying to rescue trapped people while also trying to evacuate flood waters that have inundated hundreds of houses.” --- Muharrem Ergul, Mayor, Beykoz district of Istanbul.

60E Iran: “More than 90 percent of our wetlands have completely dried up.” --- Alamdar Alamdari, environmental researcher, Fars Province.

75E Maldives: “In the worst case scenario, we'll have to move.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Shaheed.

90E Tibet (China): “The Sherpas of Khumbu may not know everything, but they are suffering the consequences of the people's greed. We mountain people should be careful and take precautions. If we don't save Khumbu today our fresh water will dry up and the problem will be impossible to solve in the future.” --- Ngawang Tenzing Jangpo, the Abbot of Tengboche monastery.

105E Borneo (Indonesia): “There's been no rain, it's horrible. The governor's office has instructed schools and offices to close until further notice.” --- Hidayat, government official.

120E Philippines: “The disaster covered almost every corner of this province - rampaging floods, falling trees, damaged houses. It happened very rapidly and many people did not expect this because they haven't experienced mud flows in those areas before.” --- Fernando Gonzalez, governor of Albay province.

135E Japan: “It's no exaggeration to say that Japan faces a critical situation when describing the rapid decline of marine supply in its domestic waters that is linked to seaweed loss. Tengusa (seaweed) provides food for marine species.” --- Tomohiro Takase, head of the fisheries department at the Hachijojima municipality.

150E (Great Barrier Reef) Australia: “In 20 years’ time, bleaching is highly likely to be annual and that will cause shallow-water corals to be in decline. We need to start working out how we can help people who rely on it for their income. It's really quite a stunning fact.” --- Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Centre for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland.

165E Micronesia: “We have nowhere to go.” --- Ben Namakin, Environmental Educator.

180 Tuvalu: “Tuvalu is the first victim of global warming.” --- Koloa Talake, former prime minister. OR

165W Niue: “Yesterday morning we woke up to a scene of so much devastation, it was just unbelievable. Cyclone Heta was just so fast, furious and ruthless.” --- Cecelia Talagi, Government Secretary. (180)

150W Alaska: “We are at a crossroads. . . Is it practical to stand and fight our Mother Ocean? Or do we surrender and move?” --- Shishmaref Mayor Edith Vorderstrasse.

135W Yukon (Canada): “The weather is really unpredictable and the ice freezes much later and breaks up earlier. There are more incidents of hunters falling through the ice.” --- Kik Shappa, Hunter, Griese Fiord, Canada.

120 W Nunavut (Canada): “Our cultural heritage is at stake here. We are an adaptable people. We have over the millennium been able to adapt to incredible circumstances. But I think adaptability has its limits. If the ice is not forming, how else does one adapt to seasons that are not as they used to be when the whole environment is changing underneath our feet, literally?” --- Sheila Watt-Cloutier, president of the circumpolar conference.

105W Colorado (USA): “In Colorado, climate change means less snow, less water, more wildfires, less biodiversity and less economic opportunity, as there is less water available for development.” --- Stephen Saunders, president, Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.

90W Nicaragua: “I closed my eyes and prayed to God.” --- Hurricane Mitch survivor Mariana González.

75W Peru: “I tell my wife the day that mountain loses its snow, we will have to move out of the valley.” Jose Ignacio Lambarri, farmer, Urubamba Valley

60W Argentina: “The flooding has forced us to redesign routes. We thought it would be for a short period of time, but it has been almost six years.” --- Carlos Avellaneda, manager of a trucking company.

45W Brazil: “I am very frightened. One thing goes wrong, and the entire system follows.” --- Jair Souto, Mayor of Manaquiri.

30W Greenland: “They tell us that we must not eat mattak [whale blubber], but this is all we know. Eating Inughuit food makes us who we are, and anyway we have nothing else to eat!” --- Tekummeq, Town of Qaanaaq.

15W Maurtitania: “We are only eating one meal a day. When there is not enough food, it is the young and the old that get fed first.” --- Fatimitu Mint Eletou, Bouchamo.

Placing the shoes next to each other as a proxy for people across the globe, I conceptually diminish the distance between them.

We are one global community. Creating this installation in a continent with no borders, I aims to diminish the man-made barriers in the world above it. Voices simultaneously stand in their place (longitude) around the world and inches away from one another.

For more information, see http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/longitudinal/index.htm

Walking around McMurdo Station, Antarctica

2006-12-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

Antarctic New Year's Eve: McMurdo Mosh Pit and 12 Raisins for the Kiwi Station

2006-12-31T01:00:00.000-08:00

Moshing in McMurdo. That's how one prepares for New Year's Eve in Antarctica. The community here gathered all afternoon before a truck bed-turned-stage and listened to scientists-turned-punk rockers pound on guitars, dance and sing. It's all part of the annual Icestock Festival.

Afterwards, we went to the "Galley" for our New Year's dinner before heading out next door to New Zealand's Antarctic Base to bring in 2007. At dinner we asked for grapes, it's a Cuban thing: Eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight in the New Year. They had none, so we settled for a couple of scoops of raisins. We'll bring them with us to the Kiwi Camp, gobble them down in about an hour and a half. Half a day earlier than we would have at home, on the other side of the globe.

December 31, 2006 10:37 p.m.

It was too cold to walk to the Kiwi Station, so JC and I brought in 2007 here at the American Station instead. Improvisation ensued, we toasted the New Year with Penguin plastic cups... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Arriving in Antarctica

2006-12-30T01:41:00.000-08:00

On the morning of December 28th, 2006, we departed Christchurch, New Zealand in a US Air Force C-17 jet. Five hours later we landed in the McMurdo Station, the largest of three National Science Foundation/United States Antarctic Program bases in the continent.

Gearing up in New Zealand

2006-12-27T03:18:00.000-08:00

In a few hours we will leave New Zealand and head south to Antarctica. We’ll board a US Air Force plane with some National Science Foundation sponsored scientists and leave Christchurch, the city that has served as the launching pad of many Antarctic expeditions. Five hours later, we’ll land in U.S. McMurdo Station --near the camp used by the legendary Antarctic explorers, Scott and Shackleton.

Scott left Christchurch in his expedition to the South Pole, arriving only to find disillusionment and a Norwegian flag flying there. Amundsen had beaten him by a month, becoming the first to reach the South Pole. On their return trip, Scott and his men died of hypothermia, trapped inside their tents. Not far from our hotel here on Cathedral Square stands a statue honoring the Englishman's courage, it was sculpted by his widow.

Earlier today we were at the United States Antarctic Program Clothes Distribution Center trying on our garb, clothes strange to a Miamian’s touch: parkas, boots, thermal underwear, goggles, gloves, mitts, and other extreme weather outfits the team had put together for us. Stranger yet, was how easy this journey has been made for us especially when I compare it to the journey of those who opened that last frontier to us and the suffering they endured.

An exhibit at a local historical museum here in Christchurch chronicles the various expeditions to the South Pole: Starting with Captain Cook, who sailed through icebergs in the South Seas in an attempt to prove or disprove the existence of an Antarctic continent, but never found it. Ending with Shackleton, who firmly set foot across the continent and came 97 miles from being the first to reach the South Pole, before being forced to return. He got farther then than is his first attempt when an accident temporarily disabled him and knocked him off Scott expedition. Shackleton's third expedition was to traverse the Antarctic continent, but that too failed. His ship, the Endurance, was caught in an ice floe and eventually crushed by the ice. Their two year saga through ice and sea ended with no casualties, but a lot of improvisation and courage.

In a few days, I will put on an extra heavy layer of that clothing I tried on today and get on an airplane and fly to the South Pole where I will create some temporary art installations. These installations will focus on our relationship to each other and our planet—how we see ourselves and deal with the environment, climate change, the passage of time.

One piece will honor those who came before us. This one is meant to stay there permanently: In the airplane, I am bringing a portrait I am painting of Shackleton. I will hang the painting in the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, built in no small part because of the perseverence of men like him. Through this piece, conceptually, I aim to finally bring him to a place that so eluded him in life.

See: http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/mural/index.htm

Australian Pines

2006-12-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

My journey to Antarctica takes me through Australia first, the sixth continent I visit. I am traveling with my life-partner, Juan Carlos “JC” Espinosa, who is going to collaborate with me on the installations we create in Antarctica from December 28th, 2006 to January 12th, 2007. JC and I thought to spend Christmas in the land down under, before bringing in the New Year in the southernmost continent.

We left Miami on the afternoon of the 19th of December, stopping in Los Angeles for a 10:30 pm departure across the Pacific. Hungry, the ocean ate December 20th somewhere along that 14 and a half hour flight. We landed in Sydney on the morning of the 21st.

As we drove out of the Sydney Airport and to our hotel, I noticed the trees of my youth lining Joyce Drive. Their prickly pinecones would make us tip toe over the blanket of brown needle leaves they would deposit beneath them on the Bear Cut and “El Farito” beaches of Key Biscayne. Every now and then the eroding sand would make one of them topple, exposing a shallow root ball that stood like a wall against the shoreline. I grew up watching these Australian pines, having family picnics beneath them, burning bonfires after football games near them; thinking they were the most natural backdrop to my Miami landscape.

On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew leveled the Australian pine forests on Key Biscayne, tearing the invasive exotics from their roots and sparing the more adapted natives from destruction. It wasn’t until then I realized that these pines really didn’t belong there. Along with Melaleucas (which also lined Joyce Drive on the road from the airport), Australian pines were planted all over South Florida to “drain the swamps” and make room for development. It took a category five hurricane to undo what man did; it was nature’s way of giving native plants an opportunity to recreate their original environment.

The Australian pines that greeted me on Joyce Drive, however, weren’t planted for the same reasons as those in Florida. This tree-lined highway was landscaped not with exotics, but with Australian natives. Doing so was a right step towards conservation (more adaptable natives used less resources and provide natural habitats for local species).

It turns out that what was familiar, what I took for granted, what was customary wasn’t quite right. Planting and keeping Australian pines all over Florida was a shortsighted landscaping choice, unless one was trying to undo Miami’s natural ecosystems. Sadly, as individuals and as a society, we continue to be shortsighted in our thinking, and self-destructive in our actions. In our everyday lives, we ignore the consequences and perpetuate bad choices simply because they are familiar, customary or easy. One can’t rationalize doing bad just because it’s habitual. It is my hope that as the causes (and consequences) of global warming and other environmental catastrophes become more evident, we begin to rethink and break our bad habits.

Our work in Antarctica is to explore our interconnectedness to one another and to our planet. It’s about trying to find more balance in the way we coexist with nature. This simple story of the Australian pine serves to frame the discourse. It also served as an invitation to engage in creative pursuits as I explore the local culture and history, a kind gesture traveling always brings me.

Our first night was spent at the Sydney Opera House, where we took in a local holiday show. The audience –mostly local families with their children, just like those anywhere -- was asked on four separate occasions to stand and join in singing traditional Christmas carols; we readily complied. We also watched one of their acclaimed opera singers jump on stage like a kangaroo as he sung an Australian Christmas tune (Four Baby Boomers).

On the 23rd, I returned to the opera house, climbed up its steps, and waved the flag I am soon to plant 337 meters away from the geographic South Pole. I had marked that ochre colored-flag with the year 1973 and the coordinates for Sydney (33 S 86, 151 E 22). The flag will stand at the point on the moving polar ice sheet where the South Pole stood (90 S) in 1973, when the Sydney Opera House was completed. It will join 49 other flags, each spaced 9.9 meters apart, each marking important events across all continents that have moved the world forward since 1956, the year when humans first permanently settled in the South Pole. A lot has happened since, but a snapshot of time when compared to the other 149,950 years it will take for that moving glacier to reach the coast of Antarctica at the Weddell Sea.

On the 26th, Boxing Day they call it here, we’ll head out of Sydney and on to Christchurch, New Zealand – point of departure for Antarctic journeys, historic and current. There, we’ll grab our garb and head South.

"En enda värld" (There is only one world)

2006-12-21T03:33:00.000-08:00

En enda värld" (there is only one world) was the theme of the 1972 Stockholm United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. The phrase perfectly frames the concept behind my Antarctic installations, and serves as invitation for you to share the environmental challenges you are facing in your part of our world.

Please post a message (make sure to say what city your writing from) describing the environmental issues impacting your local community. I will select some of those testimonies and use them in installations I am creating in the South Pole (see more below)

Thanks,
X

MORE ON CORTADA'S LONGITUDINAL PROJECT IN THE SOUTH POLE:

Cortada will take some of the messages posted on this site and write them on the soles of twelve pairs of black shoes. These shoes will be placed inches apart around the South Pole, aligned with the longitude corresponding to the location on Earth where the message originated. Placing the shoes next to each other as a proxy for people across the globe, the artist conceptually diminishes the distance between them. We are one global community. Creating this installation in a continent with no borders, the artist aims to diminish the man-made barriers in the world above it. Voices simultaneously stand in their place (longitude) around the world and inches away from one another (see: http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/longitudinal/).

Other messages (eco-pleas, solutions) posted on the blog will be used to implement the Wind Words project, where Cortada will speak words from across the globe into Antarctica's katabatic winds, conceptually sending them "upwards" towards the rest of the world. (see: http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/windwords/).

New World School of the Arts students in Miami are also using myspace,com to help the artist collect these global messages, see http://www.myspace.com/ninetys and http://only-one-world.blogspot.com/

Antarctic Mural

2006-12-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

Xavier Cortada will create a mural honoring Antarctic explorers and scientists for permanent display in Antarctica. Researchers in Antarctica develop knowledge that is of great importance to our scientific and human advancement. Their work proves how relevant the continent is to our daily lives.

The Scientists' Mural (McMurdo Station):

Cortada will travel to Antarctica to create a "message mural" and related art pieces and installations about Antarctica and the work of scientists there. Specifically, researchers will be interviewed, emailed, or asked to write messages on a piece of paper which the artist will affix to his canvas panels. Scientists can describe personal feelings about being/researching in the Antarctic or describe the work they do (e.g.: an abstract of their publications). This message mural will be permanently exhibited in the McMurdo Station, the largest of the three year-round US stations in Antarctica.

Homage to Shackleton:.

Cortada will create a piece of art honoring Sir Ernest Shackleton, who attempted to traverse the continent but wound marooned with his 27 men on a polar ice floe. Enduring the harshest conditions, they all survived. Cortada thought to honor Shackleton's perseverance by "placing him" permanently in the South Pole, a place that so eluded him in life. As such, during his trip to the South Pole, the artist will present the artwork to the station manager. During cold, dark months Shackleton's image may serve to inspire those who now winter in the South Pole.

Endangered World

2006-12-16T18:16:00.000-08:00

Miami artist Xavier Cortada will place 24 flags in a circle around the geographic South Pole, each 15 degrees from one another.
Each flag will display an image the artist created of an endangered species from 24 different regions/time zones on Earth.

In the South Pole, each of the 24 flags in the circle will be aligned with the longitude where the animal lives on the Earth above (e.g., Panda Bear at 105° East, Leatherback Turtle at 120° East, Siberian Tiger at 135° East, etc.).

The twenty-four animals Cortada selected for the flags are endangered because their habitats are environmentally threatened by man and/or because they have been hunted to the brink of extinction.

In the project, the artist situates these animals on the driest, coldest and most inhospitable of continents to highlight the point that numerous species across the globe are losing their habitat. If nothing is done their survival is as unlikely as if they were exiled to the South Pole. Viewers are challenged to learn more about other endangered species and to better understand the environmental challenges we face globally.

0°
European Sea Sturgeon
(Acipenser sturio)

180°
Steller's Sea Lion
(Eumetopias jubatus)

15°
E Black Rhinoceros
(Diceros bicornis)

165° W
Swordfish
(Xiphias gladius)

30° E
Eastern Gorilla
(Gorilla beringei)

150° W
Blue Whale
(Balaenoptera musculus)

45° E
Ring-tailed Lemur
(Lemur catta)

135° W
Sea Otter
(Enhydra lutris)

60°
EImperial Eagle
(Aquila heliaca)

120° W
Peary Caribou
(Rangifer tarandus ssp. pearyi)

75° E
Asian Elephant
(Elephas maximus)

105° W
Wolverine
(Gulo gulo)

90° E
Asian Buffalo
(Bubalus bubalis)

90° W
American Crocodile
(Crocodylus acutus)

105° E
Giant Panda
(Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

75° W
Red Wolf
(Canis rufus)

120° E
Leatherback Turtle
(Dermochelys coriacea)

60° W
Amazonian Manatee
(Trichechus inunguis)

135° E
Tiger
(Panthera tigris)

45° W
Maned Three-toed Sloth
(Bradypus torquatus)

150° E
Koala
(Phascolarctos cinereus)

30° W
Polar Bear
(Ursus maritimus)

165° E
Yellow-eyed Penguin
(Megadyptes antipodes)

15° W
Chimpanzee
(Pan troglodytes)

The Markers

2006-12-16T18:12:00.000-08:00

"The Markers" project commemorates the 50th anniversary of the permanent United States presence at the South Pole by reflecting on what was happening in the rest of the world while scientists worked there.

National Science Foundation (NSF) Antarctic Artist and Writers Program awardee Xavier Cortada marks the passage of time by exploring important world events that have moved the world forward during the past 50 years. During January 2007, Cortada will travel to the South Pole to create the project.

Prior to their installation in the South Pole, The Markers' flags were be on exhibit at the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium. For more information visit http://www.miamisci.org/www/exhibits/markers/

South Pole

On December 14, 1911, Norwegian Roald Amundsen was first to reach the South Pole. The geographic South Pole is located near the center of the Antarctic ice sheet at an altitude of 2800 m. The ice sheet covering the Pole is moving at about 10 m per year toward the Weddell Sea (along the 60 degree West meridian).

On October 31, 1956, Lt.Commander Gus Shinn landed the first airplane at the South Pole. Three weeks later, on November 20, 1956, the first South Pole station construction crew arrived. The South Pole has been occupied since. Each year, staff at the South Pole station reposition the South Pole marker to compensate for the movement of the ice.

The Installation

Xavier Cortada's installation highlights events that have moved our world forward in the time it has taken the Antarctic ice sheet to move about 500 meters. Cortada chronicles the passage of time by depicting those events on flags he will place at the South Pole in January 2007. To accomplish this, the artist will:

Create 51differently colored flags, ranging from violet to red, each sequentially representing years from 1956 to 2006.

Mark each flag with the coordinates of a place where an event took place that moved the world forward during that given year (e.g., 1963's March on Washington, 1989's Fall of the Berlin Wall).

Plant each year's flag in the location on the ice where all the meridians converged during that flag's respective year; that is, where the South Pole stood during that given year. (Since the South Pole, 90°S, sits on a glacier that is in constant motion, its location on the ice above changes every year).
When the flags are planted they will create a spectrum of color on the white surface of the ice. The first flag will be planted at the location of the 2006 Geographic South Pole, with each subsequent flag spaced 9.9 meters apart and aligned in the direction of the Weddell Sea. Since the glacier below is moving everything in the same direction at 9.9 meters annually, the flags "mark" where the South Pole stood in any given year-- few places on Earth can so dramatically mark the passage of time.

http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/markers/

The 150,000-Year Journey

2006-12-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

Miami artist Xavier Cortada will plant a replica of a mangrove seedling in the South Pole.* The mangrove "seedling" will be planted on the 3 km thick glacial ice sheet that blankets the South Pole. Embedded in the moving glacier, the "seedling" will begin sliding downhill ( 9.9 meters every year) in the direction of the Weddell Sea, 1,400 km away. The "seedling" will thus begin its 150,000 year journey towards the seashore, where it can eventually set its roots.

The 150,000 Year Journey uses the terrain of the South Pole to address a sociological concern of the artist: the travails of an immigrant's journey --- the displacement, the solitude, the struggle to simply integrate oneself into society.

In a more universal way, the 150,000 Year Journey explores humankind as it evolves through time.

It will take almost 150,000 years for this piece to be completed. What will our world look like then? Will humans still be focused on race and ethnicity by the time this mangrove seedling lands in the sea? Will our world be dramatically different, will the polar caps have melted? How much will such melting shorten the journey?

Through the 150,000 Year Journey, the artist also invites viewers to reflect on our role as humans on this planet. Juxtaposing Antarctic time frames with human time frames reaffirms the notion that we are simply custodians of the planet who should learn to live in harmony with nature.

See http://www.cortada.com/antarctica/journey/

(* The seedling will be a replica because exotic species can not be introduced into the continent. As such, the artist will create an ice sculpture made using a mold made from an actual Miami mangrove seedling. Water from a deep South Pole well --that makes water by melting ice created back when Shakespeare was writing Hamlet-- will be poured into the mold, where it will freeze into ice.)

Xavier Cortada to create eco-art in the South Pole

2006-12-16T18:01:00.000-08:00

Miami artist Xavier Cortada will be in Antarctica from December 28, 2006 to January 12, 2007 to implement a series of art projects sponsored through the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. In exploring Antarctica, Cortada addresses our interconnectedness to one another and to our planet. See http://www.cortada.com/antarctica

"This is an exciting project that will result in a positive and meaningful body of work," says Kim Silverman, Program Director for the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writer's Program. "Xavier's project represents a new and progressive dimension in artistic expression, adding breadth to the Program. I am particularly delighted with the acknowledgement and support that the project brings to the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 movement. Mr.
Cortada's success in reaching large and diverse audiences is significant and will likely inspire people to learn more about IPY and Antarctica---the science, the history, and the importance of the continent."

It is envisioned that IPY will create long-standing legacies of international research collaborations; capture the world's imagination in science and exploration; and inspire future generations of scientists and engineers. For more information about the U.S. role in IPY visit: www.ipy.gov.)