Glacial Narratives is a series of exhibitions that spanned three years, three countries, created by three artists. The purpose of these exhibitions was to educate people about climate change, and in particular, how loss of ice in the Arctic effects change everywhere.
The concept was originally developed by Mary Walters while on a residency at the Spitsbergen Artists Center, Svalbard. There she met me and Australian video artist Adam Sébire. The work was produced by the three of us sometimes working together, sometimes separately, but always with a common goal: to bring the issues of climate change in front of people in a way that would engage their curiosity and engender a spirit of change. We were assisted in this endeavor by a vast array of people over the years, but in particular Dr. Peter Nienow, Professor of Glaciology at the University of Scotland, and Dr. Eero Rinne, Associate Professor of Snow and Ice studies at the University Centre Svalbard.
The first exhibition was A Report from the Arctic for COP 26. COP 26 was hosted in Scotland, and this exhibition was on display at Taigh Chearsabagh Museum and Art Gallery in Lochmaddy from October 2021 to January 2022. There were challenges in both communication and execution as this was during COVID, and decisions and meetings and presentations that might once have been in person had to be arranged by video chat. Suddenly, we all learned how to use Zoom.
The second exhibition was Cracks in the Ice and was on display at Custom House Gallery in Leith. Cracks in the Ice was an official entrant in the 2023 Edinburgh Science Festival.
The third exhibition was The Greenlandic Chapter specifically about ice loss in Greenland, both to the Greenland ice cap and changes in sea ice, and how this loss affects us all. This exhibition traveled from July 2024 to May 2025, and was shown at the Art Museum of Ilulissat/Ilulissani Eqqumiitsulianut Katersugaasivik, Greenland; Taigh Chearsabagh Museum and Art Gallery, Lochmaddy, Scotland; Patriothall Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, and An Talla Solais, Ullapool, Scotland.
These works would not exist without the support of Dr. Andreas Hoffman, Director of the Ilulissat Art Museum, and Andy McKinnon, Director of Taigh Cheasabagh, and with the support of Creative Scotland.
The work shown here is mine. I recommend going to the websites of Mary-Walters dot com and adamsebire dot info to see their work. There was also a book produced for these exhibitions with essays written by Dr. Andreas Hoffman, Christine Riley, the artists, and a section from “Underworld” with the gracious permission of Robert Macfarlane. The books has sold out, but there is a link to a downloadable PDF for those interested.
From September 2022 to August 2023 the Greenland ice sheet lost 196 billion tonnes of ice. This photograph of the Eqi Glacier, which is an ice front of the Greenland ice cap, was taken on August 12, 2023.
This piece was intended to be seen with squares missing, and the viewer was invited to put the glacier back together. However, some pieces would always be missing. The glacier cannot be put back together.
The Smeerenburg glacier is arguable the most beautiful glacier on Svalbard. The idea for this pieces was that by making in the image in pieces it relates to the way the glaciers are fracturing and separating.
A standalone and also part of a collaborative, this combination of old sea ice (the white object) and newly formed pancake ice shows the intermingled past and present memory of sea ice. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.
Early spring glacial brash ice jumbled in with pancake ice creating patterns of creation and loss. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.
Both a standalone and part of a collaborative piece New pancake ice merging and separating as the water flows beneath in a dance of memory. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.
Large pieces of pancake ice grind against each other, some forming bigger ice island while others are crumbled into smaller pieces. The memory of spring ice. Printed on pattern paper so that the image moves with any motion of air.
In the 1990s the phrase Blood Diamonds came into use as a way to describe the brutal cost of diamonds mined in Western and Central Africa. This series is called Blood Ice to emphasize the history of brutality, colonialization, and the destruction of the animal population in the Arctic for commercial oil and ivory as well as the long history of mineral extraction in the Arctic, as well as the use and abuse of indigenous cutures, and now the loss of sea ice and the extinction of glaciers throughout the Arctic, and environmental collapse due to human-caused climate change, which continues the damage begun by western colonizing countries into the 21at century.
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The paint is allowed to bleed into and through the cotton canvas which was supplied by a local Svalbard seamstress from leftover stock. The red spots are a reminder of the blood spilled by the whalers and hunters who drove the Arctic population of whales and walrus to extinction levels.
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Glacier fronts are often have "fault lines" of dark and teal blue colored ice -- ice so old all the air has been compressed out of it. But there are also layers of dirt and rocks captured in the ice, captured and preserved from hundreds if not thousands of years past. The red line represents those elements of past ecosystems preserved in the ice.
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A cave beckons from the glacier's interior. As the glacier is carved by meltwater streams waterfalls fountain from the ice face, flowing until the cold water refreezes the ice, but a blue doorway to the interior is left behind.
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Softened by summer, the glacier front melts into the canvas, bleeding into the surface. All images in the blood ice series were meant to be shown with candles embedded into the hanging, and with candle wax flowing down the face of the painting in the same way that the glaciers are melting, the candle wax is also melting onto the painting increasing its fragility.
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Sea Ice, fractured and breaking apart, too unstable to hold. Red splatters the ice memorializing the deaths of Arctic life in the increasing heat of the Anthroopocene.
The Blood Ice series, seen here mounted on the wood from blue pallets, is intended to be mounted on materials found locally in each venue. On Svalbard it was blue pallets. On Uist it was driftwood collected from the beach. In Greenland it was pallet wood. The purpose was to show the effects of Arctic ice melt isn't restricted to the Arctic, but everywhere on the planet. The ice is melting, but it touches every part of this planet, and the changes are profound, and becoming more intense as we continue to pretend it isn't happening.
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