Art in Antarctica
South Pole
Xavier Cortada, recipient of a 2006-2007 National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program fellowship, traveled to Antarctica to implement a range of projects and installations. Cortada strived to create art in Antarctica to demonstrate how interconnected we are to each other and to the planet. The artist explored environmental concerns and the passage of time. He created site-specific installations, sketched, painted, photographed, videotaped, and conducted interviews with scientists to document their work in Antarctica.
Cortada installed 51 flags – and an ice replica of a mangrove seedling – on a moving glacier to mark the passage of time; produced a series of Antarctic Ice Paintings made from melting Antarctic ice; created a collaborative mural with scientists working there; painted a portrait of Sir Ernest Shackleton for the South Pole (permanently placing the famed explorer in the place that eluded him in life); and placed flags for endangered animals from each time zone around the South Pole. He also created an installation with 24 black shoes at the South Pole to express the environmental concerns of people living in the world to the north.
In this performance, Cortada recited quotes from 24 people across 24 time zones that describe personal impacts of climate change. Each quote was recited above a shoe, painted with an acrylic mix of soil samples from the Dry Valleys in Antarctica, that is representative of its specific time zone – the 24 shoes arranged in a circle, each aligned with its corresponding longitude as they all converge on the South Pole.
The Markers
Cortada installed 51 different colored flags on the moving ice sheet that covers the South Pole, each 10 meters apart and marking where the South Pole stood during each of the previous 50 years (when humans first inhabited the South Pole). Each flag also displayed the coordinates of the location in the world where an important event took place during that year.
The 150,000-year Journey
Xavier Cortada placed an ice replica of a mangrove seedling in the moving ice sheet that blankets the South Pole. Embedded in the ice, the replica will move 10 meters a year in the direction of the Weddell Sea, 1,400 kilometers away. In about 150,000 years, it will arrive at the coastline and conceptually set its roots.
The 150,000-year Journey uses the South Pole to address a concern of the artist: the travails of an immigrant’s journey — the displacement, solitude, and struggle to simply integrate oneself into society. In a more universal way, the art piece explores humankind as it evolves. Cortada has been fascinated by mangrove seedlings since his childhood in Florida, and he sees them as a metaphor for an immigrant. He writes, “They float in the water until they touch a sandbar and set their roots and as they grow, they capture sediment within their roots and build land, just like immigrants landing here build community.”
It will take almost 150,000 years for this artwork to be completed. What will our world look like then? Will we still be as 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 artwork, Cortada invites us to reflect on our role as humans on Earth. 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 it.
Antarctic Ice Paintings: Global Coastlines Series
Xavier Cortada created this series using sea ice, glacier, and sediment samples provided by scientists working in Antarctica, making the continent itself both the subject and the medium of the art. The paintings, serene yet foreboding, are a poignant reflection on the impact of climate change on the artist’s hometown, Miami, and the world. Made in Antarctica, these artworks use the very ice that threatens to melt and submerge coastal cities.
The Longitudinal Installation (South Pole)
Xavier Cortada placed 24 shoes in a circle around the South Pole, each serving as a proxy for a person affected by global climate change in the world to the north. He placed the shoes inches apart along the respective longitudes where these individuals live, conceptually diminishing the distance between them.
During his performance, Cortada recited quotes from 24 individuals across 24 time zones, each describing the personal impacts of climate change. Each quote was recited above a shoe, painted with an acrylic mix of soil samples from Antarctica’s Dry Valleys, representing its specific time zone. The 24 shoes were arranged in a circle, aligned with their corresponding longitudes as they converged toward the South Pole.
Antarctica
Xavier Cortada created this print using the same screen-printing press artist Robert Rauschenberg used during his time at the Rauschenberg Residency: Rising Waters Confab. Cortada channeled the methodology of Rauschenberg by creating a print featuring a photograph of the map of Antarctica. While Cortada’s Antarctic ice paintings visually communicate the process of melting ice, this print uses an image of the continent itself to contextualize the importance of its role in sea level rise. In its abstraction, the print reflects how the continent shrinks, deforms, and melts due to the steady rise of global temperatures.
Learn more about Cortada's Antarctic work
