Cape Farewell

Art from a Changing Arctic (2006)

Cape Farewell pioneers the cultural responses to climate change. They work internationally to take artists, scientists and educators to the world’s tipping points to create outstanding art, founded in scientific research. Created by artist David Buckland in 2001, Cape Farewell has led five expeditions to the High Arctic; the frontline of climate change.
Between 2003 and 2005 filmmaker David Hinton travelled 2,500 nautical miles on three expeditions aboard the schooner Nooderlicht filming artists, scientists and educators exploring the pristine environment of the High Arctic as part of the Cape Farewell project. The result was Art from a Changing Arctic.

The film documents the Cape Farewell expeditions to Spitzbergen between 2003 and 2005, and features Anthony Gormley, Rachel Whiteread, David Buckland, Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey, Siobhan Davies, and Ian McEwan, as well as a research team led by Dr. Simon Boxhall.

Witness the artists’ response to the harsh environment, and their take on the impacts of climate change. Some were inspired to make instant artworks, carving optical ice lenses and cameras, making glacial projections, creating habitable snow-rooms, sketching, drawing and writing, whilst others quietly absorbed their surroundings, producing work on their return home. Enduring temperatures of -35°C, the stormy waters of ‘The Devil’s Dancefloor’ and the cramped conditions of nautical living, join them in their exploration of the extraordinary and vulnerable Arctic.

_{Image: End of Ice, 2006 (still) © David Buckland}