Antarctica is a land associated with discovery, danger, and fragile beauty. Australian artists have played a key role in propagating understandings of the far south—work that the international Creative Antarctica project celebrates, with the help of one of Flinders’ own.
Most people will never travel to Antarctica, but rather form their ideas about the continent vicariously, through the images, sounds, and stories created by those few who do visit. Creative works thus provide a crucial means through which perceptions of and attitudes toward Antarctica are built by observing and recording tensions between climate, landscape, technology, politics and humans. One of those creators is Flinders’ Dr Sean Williams, expeditioner to Casey station as part of a competitive Arts Fellowship through the Australian Antarctic Division and CI of the ARC Discovery Project Creative Antarctica.
Creative Antarctica is a funded multi-institutional, international research project dedicated to charting the work of over 140 Australian artists, writers and composers who have visited Antarctica in a professional capacity. These creative artists have travelled to many parts of the continent, including the South Pole, and by many routes, including whaling vessels, private yachts, tourism operators, heritage trusts, and environmental organisations, as well as through residencies with the Australian and other national programs.
Like Sean, they have drawn our attention to the continent’s heroic (and unheroic) histories; the unearthly, almost abstract beauty of its icescapes; its appealing wildlife; and its increasing susceptibility to human impact, particularly from climate change.
However, many Australians – including lovers of art, music, and literature, as well as Antarctic enthusiasts – are quite unaware of this fascinating and still-evolving creative exploration. Now is the perfect time to expand your horizons.
Creative Antarctica: Australian Artists and Writers in the Far South (Lead Curator: Philip Samartzis) is a multifaceted exhibition that seeks to foster new encounters and perspectives, highlighting the power of art and literature to transform human awareness of the South Polar region. Hosted by RMIT, and occupying two of its state-of-the-art galleries in Melbourne, this groundbreaking exhibition features work by over 35 artists including new, site-specific installations as well as historically significant artworks, and is supported by a rich suite of talks, panels and workshops that provide a variety of engagement opportunities and modes of encounter with the Far South.
The Melbourne exhibition is open to the public until Saturday 2 May.
Alongside the exhibition, Creative Antarctica’s website provides an accessible introduction to the 140-plus Australian artists and writers who have been influenced by their observations and experiences of the Far South, along with representative works from each of them that offer new understandings of one of the world’s most remote and fragile wilderness zones.
As webmaster of the Creative Antarctica site and an artist whose work is represented there as well as in the exhibition, Sean is proud to play an ongoing role in expanding the Antarctic imaginary.
Both the website and exhibition were produced as part of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Creative Antarctica: Australian Artists and Writers in the Far South, in collaboration with project team members.