You can order Antarktikos #1 - Mapping Nature and Antarktikos #2 - Light and Shadow, here.
Also you can pre order already Antarktikos #3 Rock, Paper, Ice, which at the end of this year will be published.
Soon a Kickstarter Campaign will be launched for pre ordering Antarktikos #3 - Rock, Paper, Ice.
Antarktikos #2 — Light and Shadow
2024 — 2025
Contributors
Adele Jackson, Angela Posada-Swafford, Barend (Barry) Becker, Caitlin Scarano, Daniella McCahey, David Ruth, David Trubridge, Diana Scarborough, Dick van der Kroef, Donald Fortescue, Elizabeth Leane, Elizabeth Lewis Williams, Elmar C. Fuchs, Esther Kokmeijer, Evan Townsend, Filip Wierzbicki-Nowak, Gerrit Oudakker, Craig Stevens, Greg Neri, Hanne Nielsen, Helena Gamos, Jean de Pomereu, Jennifer Freer, Jessica Houston, Joanna Sulich, John French, John kelly, Kim Cunio, Kirsten Carlson, Klaske Kokmeijer, Layla Benitez-James, Lennart Lahuis, Margriet van Weenen, Marten van Dijl, Michiel Pijpe, Nicolás Ordonez, Nigel Meredith, Olivier Remaud, Peter Bijl, Peter Wasilewski, Richard Long, Robert van Keppel, Salto Ulbeek, Stephen Eastaugh, Salto-Ulbeek, Selkie Hope, Stephen Warren, Steven Anderson, Susana Mulas Lastra, Suzette Bousema, Sybren Renema and Wendy Pyper
Contents Antarktikos #2 Light and Shadow
PAG. 002 — 009 / Introduction
PAG. 011 — 019 / Awesome Aurora, Australian Antarctic Division
PAG. 020 — 023 / Sounds of Space, Nigel Meredith, Diana Scarborough, and Kim Cunio
PAG. 024 — 025 / St Swithin’s Day Storm, Steven Anderson (Letters From Mouse) and Nigel Meredith
PAG. 026 — 033 / Wings Over an Antarctic Light Show, Ángela Posada-Swafford, Nicolas Ordonez and Elizabeth Lewis-Williams
PAG. 034 — 037 / Tracing the Sun at the South Pole, Donald Fortescue
PAG. 038 — 041 / Antarctic Sun Lines — Tracing Connections Between the Sun and Life on Earth, Adele Jackson
PAG. 042 — 047 / NASA EDGE — The Antarctic Eclipse Show, NASA (transcribed podcast)
PAG. 048 — 049 / Abstract: 2021 Antarctic Total Eclipse
PAG. 050 — 055 / Chemical Wedding, Elmar Fuchs, Gerrit Oudakker and Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 056 — 057 / Abstract: Solar Eclipses and the Surface Properties of Water,
PAG. 058 — 059 / A History in 100 Objects, Meteorite, Jean de Pomereu and Daniella McCahey
PAG. 060 — 061 / Meteorites from Vesta, NASA
PAG. 062 — 065 / Frizions, Peter Wasilewski
PAG. 066 — 067 / Abstract: Unexplored Antarctic Meteorite Collection Sites
PAG. 000 — 068 / Discovery, Sybren Renema
PAG. 069 — 071 / Astromelancholia, Lennart Lahuis
PAG. 072 — 073 / Ice is Blue but Snow is White, Stephen Warren
PAG. 074 — 075 / Abstract: Optical Properties of Ice
PAG. 076 — 077 / Abstract: Green Icebergs Revisited
PAG. 078 — 079 / To Measure the Colour of Glacier Ice, Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 080 — 081 / Iceberg, Margriet van Weenen
PAG. 082 — 083 / Thinking Like an Iceberg, Olivier Remaud
PAG. 084 — 085 / The Modeling — Verticality Shifts, Michiel Pijpe
PAG. 086 — 093 / Blinded by Light — leven Days in Antarctica, David Trubridge
PAG. 094 — 095 / Blue, Celeste, Turquoise — She has Something Sensual, Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 096 — 097 / Poles Apart No Longer, Jessica Houston
PAG. 098 — 103 / Phenomenology of a Glacier, Robert van Keppel
PAG. 000 — 104 / Assimilation, Filip Wierzbicki-Nowak
PAG. 000 — 105 / No Footprints, Richard Long
PAG. 000 — 106 / Chill Project, David Ruth
PAG. 000 — 107 / The Silent Sea — A Study of Light Refraction, John Kelly
PAG. 108 — 109 / A Good Day Tonight, Stephen Eastaugh
PAG. 110 — 111 / Taro to Jiro, Caitlin Scarano
PAG. 112 — 115 / Antarctica — Further South, Salto Ulbeek publishers
PAG. 116 — 117 / A History in 100 Objects, Eye Protection, Jean de Pomereu and Daniella McCahey
PAG. 118 — 121 / Antarctic Lost and Found, Hanne Nielsen
PAG. 122 — 123 / A History in 100 Objects, T-Shirt, Jean de Pomereu and Daniella McCahey
PAG. 124 — 125 / Across Time — a Colony of Growth and Decay, Joanna Sulich
PAG. 000 — 000 / Darkness and Light at the Bottom of the World, Greg Neri
PAG. 128 — 129 / An Estuary Beneath an Antarctic Ice Shelf, Craig Stevens
PAG. 130 — 137 / Life Beyond Light, Susana Mulas Lastra
PAG. 131 — 132 / A Tale of Light and Fear, Jennifer Freer
PAG. 135 — 136 / Are You as Treacherous and Gloomy as the Weddell Sea? Helena Gamos
PAG. 138 — 139 / Undersea Illuminations, Kirsten Carlson
PAG. 140 — 143 / Dinoflagellates, Suzette Bousema
PAG. 144 — 145 / Abstract: Dinoflagellate
PAG. 146 — 156 / Contributors
PAG. 157 — 159 / Acknowledgements and Colofon
PAG. 000 — 000 / Open Call #3 Rock, Paper, Ice
Amid shadow, there is light
This boreal summer, I spent five weeks in the Norwegian Arctic. As I was there, constantly surrounded by the polar Sun, my thoughts turned to the darkness in Antarctica.
A black canvas covers the Antarctic sky for months in the austral winter. Although the 1,000 or so winter residents of Antarctica can’t see the Sun, they have another magical source of light amid the darkness — the aurora australis. Colourful, fluorescent curtains of light dance in the sky. For modern winteroverers — just like the early explorers before them — it must be overwhelming to witness these dynamic patterns while stranded in the polar wilderness.
The aurora is named after the Greek goddess of the dawn. Aurora is the sister of Helios, the Sun god, and Selene, the goddess of the Moon. According to myth, Aurora travels each dawn in her multi-coloured chariot from the east to the west sky, announcing the arrival of the Sun and signalling a new day.
Many other cultures throughout time have viewed the auroras as signals of the divine. Like the Greeks, Romans believed the aurora embodied the goddess of dawn. The ancient Chinese thought they were a celestial battle between good and evil dragons who breathed fire across the sky. In the tales of some Australian Aboriginal cultures, auroras represent the blood shed by warriors fighting in the heavens. Some Vikings considered the aurora to be the Bifrost Bridge — a glowing arch that guides fallen warriors to their final resting place in Valhalla.
The aurora continues to hold a near-mythical status in our collective imagination, even though it also has a scientific explanation — a disturbance in the magnetosphere caused by solar winds. Other, invisible markers of space also reach Antarctica. Scientists have identified and recorded sounds from space, and found and collected meteorites from the cosmos on the surface of the blue ice sheet.
As a symbolic act, while the Sun was with me in the Arctic, I created cyanotype ‘Sun paintings’ during and around the summer solstice. I painted cotton papers in an iron-salt solution that, when exposed to sunlight, became a deep Prussian blue. Nearby rocks and boulders blocked the Sun from reacting with the iron-salt solution, leaving those parts white. The gradients that formed beneath pieces of Earth are records of their shadow and traces of the polar night that would eventually return.
Amid light, there is shadow
For those overwintering in Antarctica, the first rays of light after months of darkness is an epic happening, usually accompanied by celebrations. The crew at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station sees the sunrise only once a year, at the equinox.
They spend the next six months in total daylight until the sunset at the next equinox — a single sunrise and a single sunset each year.
One exception breaks this solar pattern and the long polar day — a solar eclipse, a natural phenomenon that occurs only once in many years. In Antarctica, the Moon challenged the Sun’s dominance by crossing in front of it and creating a precious few minutes of darkness during the day. But grand and celestial shadows such as these are rare and fleeting. The last time an Antarctic solar eclipse took place was on Dec. 4, 2021. The next time it will happen will be an annular solar eclipse on Feb. 17, 2026. A total solar eclipse won’t darken parts of Antarctica again until Dec. 15, 2039.
Blue is the colour where light and shadow meet
On the following page, Sun graphs chart the presence of light for the Antarctic locations featured in this issue of Antarktikos. They also show the different kinds of twilight. Many people are familiar with the golden hour, a name often given to civil twilight because of the hue it casts. But just before (at dawn) or after (at dusk) the golden hour, there is another magical hour — the blue hour. The blue hour coincides with nautical twilight. In the Netherlands, where I live, it lasts between 45-75 minutes. In Antarctica, however, where the Sun circles low beneath the horizon, the blue ‘hour’ lasts for weeks.
Antarctica is not just a land of enduring day and night. It is a land of lingering twilight. It is on the boundary between light and shadow, a great and merciless wilderness swathed in blue.
Blue is a mysterious colour that rarely occurs in the natural world except as translucency. The ocean looks blue because the water absorbs red, orange, and yellow light more than blue, which has a shorter wavelength. The sky and glacier ice are blue for the same reason. I can not think of another place on earth where land meets sky meets water in such a symbiosis, in such a blueness, as in Antarctica.
Antarctica can be seen as the last great wilderness on Earth. It is owned by no one, yet belongs to us all. However, the remaining opportunities for this frozen expanse are not without responsibility. Antarctica is also at the core of some of the most pressing human-caused challenges facing our contemporary world.
In many respects, scientists and artists share spiritual and mental ownership of Antarctica. They are not interested in conquering or controlling. Instead, they temporarily engage with the continent to bring knowledge, ideas, inspiration, confusion, beauty, and acutely urgent questions to the world. Art and science draw from the same source, but where scientists follow methods and frameworks, artists flourish on limitlessness. No single way of thinking will allow us to truly understand Antarctica, but together our understandings can reinforce one another, reaching the mind through the heart and the heart through the mind.
As British nature writer Robert Macfarlane wrote 'We will not save what we do not love, and we rarely love what we cannot name.'
Esther Kokmeijer
Founder and editor-in-chief of Antarktikos
Also you can pre order already Antarktikos #3 Rock, Paper, Ice, which at the end of this year will be published.
Soon a Kickstarter Campaign will be launched for pre ordering Antarktikos #3 - Rock, Paper, Ice.
Antarktikos #2 — Light and Shadow
2024 — 2025
Contributors
Adele Jackson, Angela Posada-Swafford, Barend (Barry) Becker, Caitlin Scarano, Daniella McCahey, David Ruth, David Trubridge, Diana Scarborough, Dick van der Kroef, Donald Fortescue, Elizabeth Leane, Elizabeth Lewis Williams, Elmar C. Fuchs, Esther Kokmeijer, Evan Townsend, Filip Wierzbicki-Nowak, Gerrit Oudakker, Craig Stevens, Greg Neri, Hanne Nielsen, Helena Gamos, Jean de Pomereu, Jennifer Freer, Jessica Houston, Joanna Sulich, John French, John kelly, Kim Cunio, Kirsten Carlson, Klaske Kokmeijer, Layla Benitez-James, Lennart Lahuis, Margriet van Weenen, Marten van Dijl, Michiel Pijpe, Nicolás Ordonez, Nigel Meredith, Olivier Remaud, Peter Bijl, Peter Wasilewski, Richard Long, Robert van Keppel, Salto Ulbeek, Stephen Eastaugh, Salto-Ulbeek, Selkie Hope, Stephen Warren, Steven Anderson, Susana Mulas Lastra, Suzette Bousema, Sybren Renema and Wendy Pyper
Contents Antarktikos #2 Light and Shadow
PAG. 002 — 009 / Introduction
Chapter I. — Into the Cosmos
PAG. 011 — 019 / Awesome Aurora, Australian Antarctic Division
PAG. 020 — 023 / Sounds of Space, Nigel Meredith, Diana Scarborough, and Kim Cunio
PAG. 024 — 025 / St Swithin’s Day Storm, Steven Anderson (Letters From Mouse) and Nigel Meredith
PAG. 026 — 033 / Wings Over an Antarctic Light Show, Ángela Posada-Swafford, Nicolas Ordonez and Elizabeth Lewis-Williams
PAG. 034 — 037 / Tracing the Sun at the South Pole, Donald Fortescue
PAG. 038 — 041 / Antarctic Sun Lines — Tracing Connections Between the Sun and Life on Earth, Adele Jackson
PAG. 042 — 047 / NASA EDGE — The Antarctic Eclipse Show, NASA (transcribed podcast)
PAG. 048 — 049 / Abstract: 2021 Antarctic Total Eclipse
PAG. 050 — 055 / Chemical Wedding, Elmar Fuchs, Gerrit Oudakker and Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 056 — 057 / Abstract: Solar Eclipses and the Surface Properties of Water,
PAG. 058 — 059 / A History in 100 Objects, Meteorite, Jean de Pomereu and Daniella McCahey
PAG. 060 — 061 / Meteorites from Vesta, NASA
PAG. 062 — 065 / Frizions, Peter Wasilewski
PAG. 066 — 067 / Abstract: Unexplored Antarctic Meteorite Collection Sites
PAG. 000 — 068 / Discovery, Sybren Renema
PAG. 069 — 071 / Astromelancholia, Lennart Lahuis
Chapter II. — On the Continen
PAG. 072 — 073 / Ice is Blue but Snow is White, Stephen Warren
PAG. 074 — 075 / Abstract: Optical Properties of Ice
PAG. 076 — 077 / Abstract: Green Icebergs Revisited
PAG. 078 — 079 / To Measure the Colour of Glacier Ice, Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 080 — 081 / Iceberg, Margriet van Weenen
PAG. 082 — 083 / Thinking Like an Iceberg, Olivier Remaud
PAG. 084 — 085 / The Modeling — Verticality Shifts, Michiel Pijpe
PAG. 086 — 093 / Blinded by Light — leven Days in Antarctica, David Trubridge
PAG. 094 — 095 / Blue, Celeste, Turquoise — She has Something Sensual, Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 096 — 097 / Poles Apart No Longer, Jessica Houston
PAG. 098 — 103 / Phenomenology of a Glacier, Robert van Keppel
PAG. 000 — 104 / Assimilation, Filip Wierzbicki-Nowak
PAG. 000 — 105 / No Footprints, Richard Long
PAG. 000 — 106 / Chill Project, David Ruth
PAG. 000 — 107 / The Silent Sea — A Study of Light Refraction, John Kelly
PAG. 108 — 109 / A Good Day Tonight, Stephen Eastaugh
PAG. 110 — 111 / Taro to Jiro, Caitlin Scarano
PAG. 112 — 115 / Antarctica — Further South, Salto Ulbeek publishers
PAG. 116 — 117 / A History in 100 Objects, Eye Protection, Jean de Pomereu and Daniella McCahey
PAG. 118 — 121 / Antarctic Lost and Found, Hanne Nielsen
PAG. 122 — 123 / A History in 100 Objects, T-Shirt, Jean de Pomereu and Daniella McCahey
PAG. 124 — 125 / Across Time — a Colony of Growth and Decay, Joanna Sulich
PAG. 000 — 000 / Darkness and Light at the Bottom of the World, Greg Neri
Chapter III. — Into the Depths
PAG. 128 — 129 / An Estuary Beneath an Antarctic Ice Shelf, Craig Stevens
PAG. 130 — 137 / Life Beyond Light, Susana Mulas Lastra
PAG. 131 — 132 / A Tale of Light and Fear, Jennifer Freer
PAG. 135 — 136 / Are You as Treacherous and Gloomy as the Weddell Sea? Helena Gamos
PAG. 138 — 139 / Undersea Illuminations, Kirsten Carlson
PAG. 140 — 143 / Dinoflagellates, Suzette Bousema
PAG. 144 — 145 / Abstract: Dinoflagellate
PAG. 146 — 156 / Contributors
PAG. 157 — 159 / Acknowledgements and Colofon
PAG. 000 — 000 / Open Call #3 Rock, Paper, Ice
The Sun Is Never Gone,
Just Somewhere Else
Amid shadow, there is light
This boreal summer, I spent five weeks in the Norwegian Arctic. As I was there, constantly surrounded by the polar Sun, my thoughts turned to the darkness in Antarctica.
A black canvas covers the Antarctic sky for months in the austral winter. Although the 1,000 or so winter residents of Antarctica can’t see the Sun, they have another magical source of light amid the darkness — the aurora australis. Colourful, fluorescent curtains of light dance in the sky. For modern winteroverers — just like the early explorers before them — it must be overwhelming to witness these dynamic patterns while stranded in the polar wilderness.
The aurora is named after the Greek goddess of the dawn. Aurora is the sister of Helios, the Sun god, and Selene, the goddess of the Moon. According to myth, Aurora travels each dawn in her multi-coloured chariot from the east to the west sky, announcing the arrival of the Sun and signalling a new day.
Many other cultures throughout time have viewed the auroras as signals of the divine. Like the Greeks, Romans believed the aurora embodied the goddess of dawn. The ancient Chinese thought they were a celestial battle between good and evil dragons who breathed fire across the sky. In the tales of some Australian Aboriginal cultures, auroras represent the blood shed by warriors fighting in the heavens. Some Vikings considered the aurora to be the Bifrost Bridge — a glowing arch that guides fallen warriors to their final resting place in Valhalla.
The aurora continues to hold a near-mythical status in our collective imagination, even though it also has a scientific explanation — a disturbance in the magnetosphere caused by solar winds. Other, invisible markers of space also reach Antarctica. Scientists have identified and recorded sounds from space, and found and collected meteorites from the cosmos on the surface of the blue ice sheet.
As a symbolic act, while the Sun was with me in the Arctic, I created cyanotype ‘Sun paintings’ during and around the summer solstice. I painted cotton papers in an iron-salt solution that, when exposed to sunlight, became a deep Prussian blue. Nearby rocks and boulders blocked the Sun from reacting with the iron-salt solution, leaving those parts white. The gradients that formed beneath pieces of Earth are records of their shadow and traces of the polar night that would eventually return.
Amid light, there is shadow
For those overwintering in Antarctica, the first rays of light after months of darkness is an epic happening, usually accompanied by celebrations. The crew at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station sees the sunrise only once a year, at the equinox.
They spend the next six months in total daylight until the sunset at the next equinox — a single sunrise and a single sunset each year.
One exception breaks this solar pattern and the long polar day — a solar eclipse, a natural phenomenon that occurs only once in many years. In Antarctica, the Moon challenged the Sun’s dominance by crossing in front of it and creating a precious few minutes of darkness during the day. But grand and celestial shadows such as these are rare and fleeting. The last time an Antarctic solar eclipse took place was on Dec. 4, 2021. The next time it will happen will be an annular solar eclipse on Feb. 17, 2026. A total solar eclipse won’t darken parts of Antarctica again until Dec. 15, 2039.
Blue is the colour where light and shadow meet
On the following page, Sun graphs chart the presence of light for the Antarctic locations featured in this issue of Antarktikos. They also show the different kinds of twilight. Many people are familiar with the golden hour, a name often given to civil twilight because of the hue it casts. But just before (at dawn) or after (at dusk) the golden hour, there is another magical hour — the blue hour. The blue hour coincides with nautical twilight. In the Netherlands, where I live, it lasts between 45-75 minutes. In Antarctica, however, where the Sun circles low beneath the horizon, the blue ‘hour’ lasts for weeks.
Antarctica is not just a land of enduring day and night. It is a land of lingering twilight. It is on the boundary between light and shadow, a great and merciless wilderness swathed in blue.
Blue is a mysterious colour that rarely occurs in the natural world except as translucency. The ocean looks blue because the water absorbs red, orange, and yellow light more than blue, which has a shorter wavelength. The sky and glacier ice are blue for the same reason. I can not think of another place on earth where land meets sky meets water in such a symbiosis, in such a blueness, as in Antarctica.
Antarctica can be seen as the last great wilderness on Earth. It is owned by no one, yet belongs to us all. However, the remaining opportunities for this frozen expanse are not without responsibility. Antarctica is also at the core of some of the most pressing human-caused challenges facing our contemporary world.
In many respects, scientists and artists share spiritual and mental ownership of Antarctica. They are not interested in conquering or controlling. Instead, they temporarily engage with the continent to bring knowledge, ideas, inspiration, confusion, beauty, and acutely urgent questions to the world. Art and science draw from the same source, but where scientists follow methods and frameworks, artists flourish on limitlessness. No single way of thinking will allow us to truly understand Antarctica, but together our understandings can reinforce one another, reaching the mind through the heart and the heart through the mind.
As British nature writer Robert Macfarlane wrote 'We will not save what we do not love, and we rarely love what we cannot name.'
Esther Kokmeijer
Founder and editor-in-chief of Antarktikos
///
Antarktikos #1 — Mapping Nature
2021 — 2022
Contributors
Adele Jackson, Adwin de Kluyver, Alexander Stevenson, Andrea Bordoli, Angelo De Grande, Anja de Jong, Ann-Kristin Källström, Ashwin Patel, Brett Houser, Carla Feijen, Carlo Barbante, Daan den Houter, Donald Fortescue, Elizabeth Leane, Esther Kokmeijer, Ethan Reid, Evan Townsend, Filip Wierzbicki-Nowak, Franziska Agrawal, Giulia Foscari Widmann Rezzonico, Graeme Walker, Ian van Coller, Jacinda Russell, John Kelly, Jolande Venema, Justine Corrijn, Kaori Tsukikaze, Karin Hellqvist, Klaske Kokmeijer, Lita Albuquerque, Lucy and Jorge Orta, Maarten J.J.E. Loonen, Michaela Grill, Oliver Thie, Peter Fretwell, Robert Roelink, Saar Snoek, Sasja Hagens, Scenocosme (Grégory Lasserre and Anaïs met den Ancxt), Shauna Lee Lange, Suzette Bousema, Thomas Rackow, Tim O’Riley, Todd Anderson, UNLESS, Valerie van Leersum, Verena Strenke and Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage).
Contents Antarktikos #1 Mappaing Antarctica
PAG. 002 — 005 / An Introduction, Esther Kokmeijer
Chapter I. Mapping Antarctica
PAG. 007 — 011 / Mapping Antarctica, LIMA
PAG. 012 / Antarctica in Twelve Layers, Klaske Kokmeijer
PAG. 013 — 015 / The Mapping of Antarctica, The Map House
PAG. 016 — 021 / Nihil, Nothing — 71°10’ S, 106°54’ W, Adwin de Kluyver
PAG. 022 — 025 / Two Encounters, John Kelly
PAG. 026 / Maps from the Peaceful Order of Antarcticans, Graeme Walker
PAG. 027 / Metaphorical Antipodes — The Arctic Circle and Antarctica, Jacinda Russell
PAG. 028 — 029 / Antarctic Village No Borders, Lucy + Jorge Orta
PAG. 030 — 033 / Finding True South, Evan Townsend
PAG. 034 — 035 / In Conversation with the Colours of the North Sea, Blending into the Colours of Antarctica, Valerie van LeersumPAG. 036 / Observing Penguins in a Different Light, Maarten J.J.E. Loonen
PAG. 037 / Arctic vs. Antarctic Melting Stripes, Thomas Rackow
PAG. 038 / Stillness I and II, Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 039 / Antarctic Traces, Michaela Grill
PAG. 040 — 041 / Freshwater Reservoir Movement, Ashwin Patel
PAG. 042 — 045 / Terra Nullius — Ownership and Pioneering on Ice, Esther Kokmeijer
PAG. 046 — 049 / Borderland Antarctica [Revisited], Anja de Jong
PAG. 049 — 051 / Endlessness, Tim O’Riley
PAG. 052 — 054 / Solastalgia — Mourning through theTranslation of Ice, Karin Hellqvist
PAG. 055 — 057 / Travel the Earth and Draw with Fusho, Kaori Tsukikaze
PAG. 058 — 061 / Mapping the Invisible — An Artist’s. Engagement with Subatomic Particles at the South Pole, Donald Fortescue
PAG. 062 / Ephemeral Art — Snow Sculptures & Land Art Installations Made of Snow, Franziska Agrawal
PAG. 063 — 065 / Folded Space, Carla Feijen
PAG. 066 — 069 / Antarctic Dream — Excerpts from the Logbook, Andrea Pagnes (VestAndPage)
PAG. 070 / A Table for 7.8 Billion, Please, Justine Corrijn
PAG. 071 — 073 / Stellar Axis — Antarctica, Lita Albuquerque
Chapter II. Imagining Antarctica
PAG. 075 — 076 / Constructing a Place through Literature — The Image of Antarctica, Elizabeth Leane
PAG. 077 — 079 / Interference, SNOEK//HAGENS
PAG. 080 — 081 / Reality Check, Ann-Kristin Källström
PAG. 082 — 083 / Whitemelt, Oliver Thie
PAG. 084 / Antarctic Thought Experiment, Alexander Stevenson
PAG. 085 / Terra Australis Incognita, Andrea Bordoli
PAG. 085 — 087 / Icy Tiles GAN, Ethan Reid
PAG. 088 / Hole in My Heart, Shauna Lee Lange
PAG. 089 / Gaia, Filip Wierzbicki-Nowak
PAG. 090 / Kryophone, Grégory Lasserre & Anaïs met den Ancxt (Scenocosme)
PAG. 091 / The Final Glacier, Robert Roelink
PAG. 092 — 093 / Ice Paintings, Daan den Houter
PAG. 094 / Surreal Composition, Angelo De Grande
Chapter III. Archiving Antarctica
PAG. 096 — 104 / Antarctic Resolution — Ice Memory and Antarctica as an Environmental Archive, Carlo Barbante and Jacopo Gabriell
PAG. 105 / The Antarctic Time Machine, Peter Fretwell
PAG. 106 — 111 / Climate Archive, Suzette Bousema
PAG. 112 — 119 / The Oldest Ice on Earth (That We Know Of), Ian van Coller & Todd Anderson
PAG. 120 — 129 / Abstracts Research Articles
PAG. 130 — 143 / Ways of Understanding Antarctica — Relationships between Art and Science, Adele Jackson
PAG. 144 — 154 / Contributors
PAG. 156 — 159 / Acknowledgements
PAG. 160 / Open Call #2 Cosmos
*
An Introduction to Antarktikos
Two millennia ago, the ancient Greeks wrote about a vast land mass at the southern reaches of the globe. Despite having never seen it, Aristotle theorized this southern land allowed the spherical Earth to maintain a geophysical balance with its northern lands. Hence, he called it Antarktikos, ‘opposite of Arktikos’. Arktikos in ancient Greek means ‘near the bear’, referring to the northern celestial hemisphere’s Ursa Major constellation, also known as the ‘Great Bear’.
For centuries, a hypothetical southern continent appeared on maps as Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown Land of the South) or Nondum Cognita (Not Yet Known). Cartographers such as Jodocus Hondius, Abraham Ortelius, and Petrus Plancius perpetuated this belief of a southern landmass by depicting it prominently, though entirely from conjecture. In 1772, Captain James Cook embarked on a three-year mission in search of this as-yet-undiscovered continent. Although he circumnavigated Antarctica, he never reached land. The first confirmed landing on Antarctica was in 1821, only 200 years ago.
As a child, I saw Antarctica like the early philosophers and cartographers did — as a place I had never experienced, but one that was etched into my imagination. I was born in Frisia, a province in the far north of the Netherlands. In my youth, the lakes and rivers were often covered with a thick layer of ice in wintertime. My dearest childhood memories are on this ice — ice-skating through an enchanting, often white and wide, landscape. I remember the sky being deep blue, the air crispy, and the ice sparkling from the sun. Or there were days when my surroundings were swallowed by a white mist, making my world very small and comprehensible.
My childhood fascination with winter inspired a life-long curiosity about other frozen places, so in 2013 I went to Antarctica as an expedition photographer. With the first sight of icebergs, I fell instantly in love with the majestic landscape. The environment was filled with elusive and indescribable beauty, as if fairytales from my childhood had come to life but many times more impressive. Within the beautiful world of Antarctica, the floating icebergs are the most fascinating to me. Blue chunks of ice the size of buildings, and sometimes entire countries, are constantly in motion, visibly and invisibly looking for balance. These icebergs are ground, polished, and shaped by water, weather, and wind. They come from glaciers that are formed excruciatingly slowly from millions of years of compressed snow, an archive that is stored layer by layer and caries millions of years worth of valuable information. Glaciers now calve faster and faster, crumbling into large icebergs, then slowly transforming into water. 90% of an iceberg floats under the surface of the water. Concealed, relentless, and unpredictable. It is a nice metaphor for the underlying invisible interests that play a role in the global climate crisis.
Antarctica is a place where you can feel powerful and at the same time incredibly defenceless. Without question, it is nature who is in charge; humans there are at their most vulnerable. But not only on Antarctica are we vulnerable. The melting of the Antarctic ice sheet is affecting humans worldwide. Antarctica can be seen as the protagonist in many of the major issues and challenges facing the contemporary world. Since the signing of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, Antarctica has been a reserve for peaceful purposes, scientific investigation, and environmental protection. It is arguably one of the best protected places on earth. We should continue to protect Antarctica — not just for the continent’s sake, but for the world’s. Like Antarctica’s influence reaches far beyond the continent itself, our actions as human beings too can reach Antarctica, no matter where we are.
Over the past ten years as an expedition photographer and guide, I have worked in close collaboration with scientists. With the intention to find enrichment for both parties, I also joined together with scientists in my artistic work. For me, those collaborations were, and still are, extremely valuable. Both science and art are human attempts to understand and describe the world. Art is mostly associated with emotions and starts with the question ‘why?’, while science is rooted in the question ‘how?’. Where scientists are often bound by methods and frameworks, artists excel at limitlessness.
I founded Antarktikos because I believe in the power of combining art and science. In many respects, scientists and artists share immaterial and mental ownership of Antarctica. They are not interested in conquering or controlling. Instead, they temporarily engage with the continent to bring knowledge, ideas, inspiration, confusion, beauty, and acutely urgent questions to the world. I wanted to create a platform for a broad range of artistic and scientific perspectives that can reinforce one another, with the intention to reach the mind through the heart.
This magazine is a collective undertaking to research ways we can strengthen the artistic outcome of science, and vice versa. With that said, I also want to make it clear that I do not think artists and scientists should always collaborate, and not all contributions in this magazine are related to both science and art.
Most of the content of this issue was compiled through an open call. This inaugural issue of Antarktikos carries the theme Mapping Nature. The magazine is organized into three chapters — Mapping Antarctica, Archiving Antarctica, and Imagining Antarctica. Together, all of the contributions tell a full story, each one important in its own way while strengthening the meaning of the rest.
Please feel free to share your thoughts, wishes, and curiosities with us. And please invite more people into this journey so we can continue to strengthen our network and bring the wonder of this incredible continent to even greater audiences. I see this publication as a journey, a voyage through time. It is an expedition that we are embarking on together, and I hope it is one you will continue to take part in.
Esther Kokmeijer
Founder and editor-in-chief of Antarktikos
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