'Antarctic Walk' to be shown at Shot by the Sea Film Festival, Hastings

\'Antarctic walk\' video still

'Antarctic Walk' video still

This looped short film, part of a series made in response to my residency in Antarctica, is representative of the relentless disorientation I felt in such an extraordinary disempowering environment. The colour effect of the strong 24hr daylight inside the red canvas tents in which we slept for 3 weeks added to the surreality of the situation.

Hastings Film Festival runs from 25July-1Aug 2008 'Antarctic walk' will be shown in Claremont Art space, 12 Claremont, Hastings 01424 445743

Arts Catalyst commission at the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House

The following images are of an installation made on Friday 20 June inside Burlington House, Piccadilly, to coincide with the book launch of 'Bipolar'. I took one of the lumps of ice I brought back from Antarctica out of its lodgings inside the British Antarctic Surveys freezer in Cambridge and let it not so gently melt over the course of the evening. It was acoustically wired up by sound engineers Lee Patterson and Mark Hornsby, and produced uncomfortably loud interruptions as the ancient air kept locked under pressure by the ice belched into the London air. I intend to reuse the meltwater in another project I'm working on. The cabinet was recycled from an exhibition held in the British museum.

Silver Galleries V&A Installation

Walking into the silver galleries at the V&A after being asked to take part in the Friday Late series, took me straight back on board the ship to Antarctica… too much, too beautiful, too impossibly bright and shiny. It stopped me from looking. There could only be one possible response. Sometimes by taking something away do we only truly see it.There is also more to the silver galleries than the silver, I wondered when the last time someone walking through here looked up at the paintings and ceiling above the cabinets?

'BreathingBerg' at Margate Rocks

Margate Rocks on Sunday 4 May. Click for details.

Breathing Berg is one of a series of short films made as a result of an Arts council/ British Antarctic Survey sponsored residency in Antarctica. Most of the information coming out of Antarctica is scientific data monitoring the rate and implications of climate change, it is rigorously devoid of subjectivity. I felt a freedom as an artist to explore creatively the extraordinary world around me, and yet I was aware that the environment needed very little in the way of intervention, it already had its own voice; all it needed was a quiet witness. Most people watching Breathing berg for the first time make an assumption that it has been digitally manipulated. We have grown so accustomed to the slick tricks of the advertising industry that we find it hard to believe that something so unworldly can in fact be real. My part in making the film was to be a bystander with a film camera and make the decision to overlay the sound. Antarctica is a hard place in which to be a human being and I wanted to reflect this without being too interventionary.