Anna’s Cabinet of Curiosities: From the Series ‘Pages From the Book of the Unknown Explorer’
Symposium:
Session Title:
- New Environmental Art Practices on Landscapes of the Polar Regions; Politics, Emotion and Culture (FARFIELD 1)
Presentation Title:
- Anna’s Cabinet of Curiosities: From the Series ‘Pages From the Book of the Unknown Explorer’
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
Panel: New Environmental Art Practices on Landscapes of the Polar Regions; Politics, Emotion and Culture (FARFIELD 1)
This performance lecture is based on Judit Hersko’s collaboration with scientists and her experience in Antarctica as a recipient of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Grant. Hersko examines polar exploration and science from the perspective of a fictitious, unknown, female explorer, Anna Schwartz, who travels to Antarctica with the 1939 Byrd Antarctic expedition. Hersko inserts Anna’s character into real events and scientific quests, thereby spawning a narrative that reflects on the absence of women from the history of Antarctic exploration and science until the late 1960s.
She presents a layered story that addresses the history of Cartesian science as well as current climate change data in the context of present economic and political realities, while her insertion of alter egos such as Anna Schwartz, who connect closely and personally with the polar landscape, render the scientific data emotionally engaging. Anna Schwartz is a photographer and a naturalist obsessed with the microscopic and transparent planktonic snail the Limacina helicina and its predator the Clione antarctica. Her intimate relationship with these tiny creatures is in contrast to the heroic notions of exploration of her day, while ironically, her focus on the minute and invisible layers of the Antarctic landscape is more relevant to current research in polar science. These planktonic snails, studied by Hersko’s collaborator, biological oceanographer Dr. Victoria Fabry, function as canaries in the coal mine when it comes to ocean acidification – one of the most insidious aspects of anthropogenic climate change that is rapidly altering the food chain and ecology of the oceans.
