SPECIAL PRINT EDITION OPPORTUNITY

AND

NEW PROJECT DOCUMENTING THE GULF OIL CATASTROPHE

Dear Friends,

On Monday June 21st, I will be releasing six new photographic print editions from the series that I produced last year in Antarctica. Each of these six prints, available only through this special online opportunity, portray a distinct environmental or atmospheric phenomena from the Ice Continent. The images selected depict the stunning prismatic landscape, the freezing ocean, the force of the wind, as well as the interplay between the ice, snow and light.
My hope is that these new editions will allow this luminous and wondrous place to reach a wider audience. Each photograph is 8 x 12 inches in size, is printed in a limited edition of 50, and is initially priced at $200 each. You may purchase one or multiple images, and if you would like to purchase all six, you can do so at a substantial discount.

My decision to release these six print editions is two fold. Firstly, after much encouragement from my friends and collectors, I really want to give a broader group of people the opportunity to own some of the work I produced in Antarctica.

Secondly, I’m fundraising for an incredible opportunity. In what may seem at first like a surprising change of course, I’m taking the intent of The Polar Project to the Gulf of Mexico, where, far from the Arctic and Antarctica, oil is gushing into the ocean and causing devastation to the environment and wildlife. Considering that our ocean systems, and indeed all of our living systems, are connected, the likelihood of the oil eventually reaching our fragile polar oceans is quite high. I’m not sure exactly where this new work will lead me, but I feel compelled, indeed driven, to be a part of documenting this evolving crisis, and find some way to bring this darkness to light.

I am collaborating with award-winning journalist and author, Dahr Jamail, on this powerful, if challenging, project in the Gulf. We are heading to New Orleans on June 28th for a month-long journey to investigate and document the incredible environmental tragedy in the wake of the BP oil leak. Together, from a place of deep reflection and creative imaging and writing, we will join forces to give an authentic voice to this catastrophic environmental crisis. Both of us will be blogging, and I will be photographing, during our journey to the four affected states along the Gulf coast.

We will be hiring boats in the marshes and on the ocean to see the oil and its effects on the coast, water and wildlife up close. We will be teaming up with a pilot to help us gain a birds-eye perspective and to see the breadth of the disaster with our own eyes from the air. We will drive along the coast, through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and all the way to Florida, to meet with the people effected by the encroaching oil, and to engage with the environmental and wildlife rehabilitation efforts.

With this issue in the Gulf so intrinsically linked with issues of climate change, and with the effects of climate change already predicting a harsh hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico this year, the potential for this oil to spread far and wide through stormy seas and seasonal current shifts cannot be overlooked. This is an important moment to find a way to get under the skin of this issue, and focus on the emotions that run deep in all of us as we watch what is occurring in the Gulf ocean.

This print edition fundraiser will enable me to make this journey and spend the time necessary to viscerally understand what is really happening. My intent is to share this journey with you much like I did with my blog while I was in Antarctica last year.

I will let you know when I begin blogging and sharing the images from the Gulf. In the meantime, please look for this exciting print edition opportunity on Monday! There will be a link to the webpage where you can see all the images that are available, and purchase them directly from there!

All my best,
Erika

Arte da Antártida (Art from Antarctica) is an 190-page hardcover book filled with color photographs and includes essays by Alfons Hug, Ilija Trojanow, Mirko Bonné and Erika Blumenfeld. Published by Aeroplano (Rio de Janiero, Brazil) and organized by the Goethe-Institute Rio de Janiero the book was produced on the occasion of the exhibition “Intempérie: fenômenos da mudança climática da Antártida” (Intempérie: phenomena of climate change in Antarctica) curated by Alfons Hug and realized by Oi Futuro (Rio de Janeiro). Written in both Portuguese and English, the publication showcases recent artworks created in the remote continent of Antarctica by artists and artist collaboratives from around the globe, including:

ARQZE
Erika Blumenfeld
Phil Dadson
Simon Faithfull
Lutz Fritsch
Adriana Groisman
Frank Halbig
Adam Hyde
ICEPAC
Andrea Juan
Jorge E Lucy Orta
Mireya E Mercedes Maso
Rebecca Mattos
Thomas Mulcaire
Siphiwe Ngwenya
Ntsikelelo Ntshingila
Nunatak
Caio Reisewitz
Amanda Rodrigues
Pol Taylor
Tina Velho

Click HERE to buy the book! (This website is in Portuguese, but it is easy to understand what you need to do… just click on “Comprar” and you’ll be taken to the checkout. I’ll update this if a US distributor starts to sell it.)

Iceberg just north of the Antarctic Circle

Day 31; February 22, 2009; Southern Ocean, Antarctic Circle
Average Daily Temperature: 33.88˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 10.82 mph
Feels Like: 17.65˚ F

One doesn’t forget the first glimpse of an albatross. With wingspans up to ten feet, they are stunning in flight—ever graceful in the thick ocean wind. Albatross are known for their gliding, and hardly need flap their wings. By using the updraft of the wind off the ocean’s surface and the shape of their long elegant wings they can glide endlessly. I was quite fortunate to see five species today: the majestic wandering albatross, the sooty albatross, the light-mantled sooty albatross, the black-browed albatross and the grey-hooded albatross.

Sitting on up on the monkey deck with birder Dennis Weir, I learned a great many things about the albatross, as well as the many other birds that were emerging as we traversed the latitudes northward. It is quite amazing, these birds that live out here in the middle of the ocean, with only the restless sea to land on! Albatross can go periods of years wandering the sea before returning to the South Atlantic islands where they were born in order to mate.

Several times through the day we also saw Humpback Whales, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in pods, and often near the lone icebergs that still persisted along the horizon. I was thrilled to witness one in the distance leap completely out of the water, and caught glimpses of others waving their fins or tails above the water. These graceful marine mammals had migrated here with their young for the austral summer.

Although we are now far from their origin, the ice shelf, the icebergs endure the distance. The gray and misty day displayed their ghost-like silhouettes along the horizon. Their forms emerged and dissipated as if memories, yet in their fortitude they persevered despite the warming waters that now surround them. I cannot help but wonder at the their fate, and at the fate of Antarctica itself, as well as the Arctic, as ocean waters in general continue to increase in temperature and as Earth’s climate changes. How can we reconcile the loss of these lands and their unique phenomena? How can we bear their possible extinction by what may be our own hand? Can we make the changes necessary to save these environments, these pieces of our natural heritage?

Just after noon, we crossed latitude 66 degrees and 29 minutes, and I left the Antarctic Circle behind. I have spent 26 days in Antarctica, 22 on the continent and four in the Antarctic Ocean. I have been opened to a world that I will not soon relinquish to memory, wanting to carry this experience afresh with me in every moment until I go back. This journey has strengthened my intent with my project, and impassioned me with the courage to accomplish it.
***

Pancake ice forming on the surface of the ocean

Day 30; February 21, 2009; Penguin Bukta, Fimbul Ice Shelf, Southern Ocean, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 24.53˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 14.77 mph
Feels Like: 2.38˚ F

This morning I awoke to find that the sea had literally begun to freeze. All around the ship, and as far as I could see, the surface of the ocean was covered in small discs of solid ice. Though the equinox is still a month away, which definitively marks the change of seasons, one can already see the signs of the quickly approaching winter.

Watching the Southern Ocean freeze before my eyes was an awesome sight—completely profound, if not seemingly impossible.

Pancake Ice

The discs of ice that had appeared overnight are called “pancake ice,” and they are formed in a most remarkable way. As the temperature of the ocean water begins to drop to the point of freezing, the surface water, which has less salinity, will begin to freeze first. However, as the ocean is never still, when the ice begins to form it knocks about gently on the surface waves, bumping into other forming bits of ice. The persistence of the motion means the ice plates are always colliding into one another, eroding each other’s edges which results in their round shape.

The last flights from SANAE arrived before lunch, and with everyone on board, the ship embarked on the long voyage north. As we moved away from the ice shelf, and the continent of Antarctica, the boat made its way through the newly frozen surface of the calm ocean, marking our path behind us. The petrels were darting around the ship, following our northerly tack. Icebergs towered, ever luminous, in all directions.

The panorama held my vision in earnest for the next six hours. The sunlight, which disappeared occasionally behind light cloud cover, was creating the seascape anew minute by minute. Literally, I could photograph the same direction three times within a short period, and the color of the ocean would be a gloomy gray in one, a radiant gold in another, and an icy deep blue in the third. Impossibly striking scenes passed before our eyes, every direction a new opportunity to gasp. I have over 800 photographs from this day, and have found it an entirely hopeless effort to try to edit them—each one holds a unique beauty, leaving me quite confounded as to how claim one superior to another.

Before long, the pack ice, which is the ice left over from the previous winter’s freeze, was scattered across the horizon, forming a theatrical stage upon which the light continued to play. Every moment was a magnum opus. Large flat pieces of ice in the shapes of squares or triangles became like monochromatic light sculptures. Jagged pieces, which sliced upward into the sky or downward into the sea, were like truculent brushstrokes upon the foreground. As I watched the landscape before me, I esteem more deeply the paintings I had seen at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts the day before I left on this journey—a wonderfully curated exhibition of historic paintings of the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

These artists, some of the first to see Antarctica, let alone paint it, had sought to represent the landscape with an air of emotionality—they attempted to reproduce nature accurately, but ever imbued with the human effort and adventure that led them to be there. I remember, as I looked into those paintings, wondering if they were a bit sensational in their approach, but now I believe that not to be the case at all. They are sensational, yes, but insofar as they accurately portray the real and persistent drama of the nature itself. Those paintings are more impressive to me now, having seen this place with my own eyes—I couldn’t have known beforehand the land those paintings yearned after. Now, I know.

I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of penguins amongst the pack ice several times throughout the day. On one large flow, there were four Adélie penguins and one Emperor penguin, which allowed a clear view of the size difference. Scurrying along the ice, sometimes standing upright looking directly at you, and then suddenly dropping on to their bellies and sliding around on the ice, they seem somehow comical and noble at the same time. I also spotted a small pod of Minke Whales in the distance, their dark fins emerging elegantly from the water as they surfaced for air.

At dusk, light continued in vain to pursue the expanding darkness. Several times the vista before me would be entirely a dark grayish blue, save for a single iceberg in the distance, which would be fully illuminated in the warm brilliance of the remaining sunlight. Perfectly horizontal lines of light would appear and disappear in seconds. The day, indeed a masterpiece in color and light, finally dissolved into night with the sun setting on the last remaining pack ice before we reached the open ocean. Behind me, Antarctica would still be illuminated, but in my growing distance, I could no longer see it.
***

Newly formed icebergs in the waning sunlight

Day 29; February 20, 2009; Penguin Bukta, Fimbul Ice Shelf, Southern Ocean, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 19.14˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 18.91 mph
Feels Like: -9.23˚ F

The first day on the SA Agulhas was spent acquainting myself with my new territory. This would be my first time on a sea voyage and there was much to comprehend, not the least of which was being atop a thing which never ceases to move about below you. The seawater around the ice shelf was relatively calm, but a certain finesse was still required in getting about the ship.

My cabin, which I would eventually share with three other women, was on the upper deck. Small but workable, the best feature was the portal view. The bunks were cozy, if a bit cramped, and I remarked at the support along the outer edge, which I imagined was to keep you from falling out of bed in rough seas. As I set about unpacking my things, I began to settle into the reality that this ship would be home for the two-week journey back to Cape Town.

Having missed breakfast—sure to be a daily occurrence given that it starts at 7:30 am—I was relieved to find that the heli deck was endowed with a rather elaborate espresso machine. For all its glamour, it was undoubtedly in need of a tune-up, as it arrived at a decent brew only after a bit of perseverance and fortuity. Alas, with veritable coffee in hand, I went about setting up my studio in one of the science labs at the back of the ship where Thomas, 1stborn and I had been given space to work.

Lunch came and went, the meals here being nothing more than tolerable sustenance. The bowl of pears was rather a treat—anything resembling “fresh” is always a high commodity—and I grabbed one on my way out of the dinning room. The food on the ship is really not something I wanted to spend too much time thinking about, given that most of it was packed into containers back in early December 2008. The same, of course, was true at SANAE, but the chef at the base was somehow more adept at preparing enjoyable meals. Alas, one learns to adapt.

I spent the rest of the day up on the monkey deck, a wind-protected bench at the very top of the boat which offers a 360-degree view. It was quite cold, but the fresh air was revitalizing, and with most of my body sheltered from the wind, I was able to sit and watch the environs for hours. There was much to take in as we lingered in front of the ice shelf waiting for the rest of the flights from the base—the sea was abundant with birds!

Snow and Antarctic Petrels darted around the ship, riding the potent air currents. These little birds, indigenous to Antarctica, are quite spirited. Flitting around the boat, they sometimes gain fast altitude and then hang in the air against the wind, as if suspended, and other times race past towards the tips of the waves. The Giant Southern Petrels are quite a bit larger, and have more elongated movements, languidly making wide circles around the ship.

All the while, the horizon was dotted with floating ice castles. As the ship made its way through and around them, our ever-changing angle of view showed one façade’s contours slowly shifting into others, creating vastly different shapes from a single iceberg. On approach, an iceberg would look entirely different than once we had passed it by.

The day parted with a waning crescent moon rising over the continent, half a mile away. The early twilight barely illuminated the edge of the ice shelf, the sun having left the sky blushing.
***

Iceberg floating off the Ice Shelf

Day 28; February 19, 2009; Penguin Bukta, Fimbul Ice Shelf, Southern Ocean, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 20.93˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 35.1 mph
Feels Like: -31.72˚ F

Dawn both elated my soul and dimmed my heart, as this sunrise marked my last day on the continent of Antarctica for this journey. I had been up all night, again, attempting to observe and capture the ever-changing nature around me. The base was completely silent, deep in the arms of Morpheus. I, bundled in all of my gear, took the video camera outside to record the light from our massive star, which was proclaiming the day on the southern horizon.

Facing east into 30-knot winds, I sat on the ground in the tumult of wailing wind and fiercely blowing ice crystals. My body swayed in the chaotic pulsing of the wind’s force while I anchored the camera as best I could and began my 30-minute recording. The strong morning light refracted off each frozen water crystal and magnified itself throughout the snowy distance. The world around me was almost painfully radiant—as if the ice itself was ablaze. What a sublime and ethereal world Antarctica is!

This was the same phenomenon I had experienced my first day arriving at SANAE, and now on my last it seemed somehow fitting to be experiencing it again; a full circle. Cycles are the hidden breath of our being—the innate rhythm of traversing time. The closing of one cycle always denotes the opening of another, and as I looked out across the luminous layer of snow that hovered almost two feet from the ground, my own body seemingly suspended in its westerly flow, I surrendered to the cold, the wind, and my last moments on the Ice. Antarctica has shown me so much of its magnificence—I’m ever stunned and awed by its force and sovereignty.

Upon my return from outside, I rushed to put the remaining things into my bags and joined Thomas and 1stborn, and headed off to the heli-pad. It would take three days to transport everyone from the base to the ship, save the ten people remaining for the winter, and we had been scheduled to depart on the very first flight to the ship. Having secured the sole window seat in advance so I could photograph the landscape during our hour-long journey to the sea, I peered out of the bulbous aperture and watched as the helicopter leapt upward into the air currents. Neall and Kevin, our pilots, were generous with our flight, and we had a great tour of the nunataks and their wind scoops en route to the ice shelf. Beyond the mountain range, we passed over massive geometries of crevasses, and the elongated patterns of cloud shadows stretching, as if lines, across the snow-covered landscape.

With my eyes lost on the horizon, my mind turned inward, and before long emotion overtook me. I was leaving Antarctica, and the deep feeling of loss that emerged surprised me. My affinity for this land had been immediate and absolute, and my departure from the ice continent filled me with enormous sorrow. Tears flowed in gratitude for the pure beauty and grace of my experience here, and for the gifts Antarctica had bestowed. It is, indeed, a privilege to come to this land and experience its phenomenal nature. Antarctica shall never leave me.

My melancholy transformed instantly as the ice shelf became visible below, revealing the birthplace of icebergs. From this vantage point, I could see clearly where staggeringly large areas of the shelf had just broken off, and where others would soon follow. These ice islands, entirely unmoored, drift freely northward on their lonely voyage out to sea, where they continue to break down and melt as they traverse the latitudes toward warmer waters.

The sight was literally breathtaking—hundreds of colossal icebergs floated effortlessly along the coast, despite their sheer mass. Tiny air bubbles caught in the ice layers make the icebergs particularly buoyant, causing them to rise even higher than the surface of the shelf itself once they are freed from it. Amazingly, the visible area of an iceberg—above the ocean’s surface—displays only 30 percent of its actual size. The remaining 70 percent lies hidden under the sea.

It is a wondrous experience to see these remarkable forms scattered across the horizon, appearing as impossible mountains. Their surreal, luminous grandeur seemed in stark contrast to the grey-bronze sea. As I marveled at their amorphous shapes, the sun streaked golden light behind the thick clouds, painting the dark water with a warm shimmer.

We had begun our descent, and quickly the red deck of the SA Agulhas Research Vessel appeared below. We landed with the ship at sea, the watercraft rocking in the waves as I stepped off the helicopter. Finding my balance, and attuning my body to what would be two weeks aboard this ship, I looked back toward the continent. The icebergs, which I had seen from the air, were now towering around us, their presence insistent and hypnotic. The ice shelf behind them glowed brightly in the now midmorning sun.
***

SA Agulhas offloading at Penguin Bukta Ice Shelf Station (Photo Credit: SANAP)

February 19 – March 2, 2009; Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica to Cape Town, South Africa

Erika, on the Ice, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

From today until March 2, I will be traveling from Antarctica to South Africa aboard the South African National Antarctic Program’s Research Vessel, the SA Agulhas. I will not have internet access while on the ship, and so the blog posts I will write while on the Agulhas will not be posted until I get to Cape Town. I look forward to sharing the final leg of my journey with you then.

***

Goundhog automatic weather station (left), the Umthombo Womlilo wind/solar generator (center), and the ICEPAC mobile base(right)

Day 25; February 16, 2009; Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 
Average Daily Wind Speed: 
Feels Like: 

The last three days were entirely given over to the completion of the ITASC expedition, and all of our work in the field.

After shooting the interior photographs of ICEPAC for the exhibition catalogue, and finishing each of our individual art projects, we began the complete removal of the mobile base—an exhaustive experience that took 30 consecutive hours of hard manual labor in the freezing cold.

It was a significant moment, as it marked the successful end of ITASC’s four-year undertaking. It also held the distinct poignancy, that subtle sorrow, that comes with seeing such a huge project come to fruition.

In honor of our mobile base:

Inside the ICEPAC, view of living quarters with our sub-zero sleeping bags, room lighting and video projector--all wind and solor powered!

Erika, still confounded by Merleau-Ponty’s "Phenomenology of Perception"

Thomas, sipping morning coffee in the hammock

Erika and 1stborn lounging around at ICEPAC

***

Thomas Mulcaire entering ICEPAC in the windy snow mist

Day 21; February 12, 2009; Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature:  
Average Daily Wind Speed:   
Feels Like:  

Tonight would be my last night sleeping in ICEPAC on this trip. The wind had picked up, and while ICEPAC remained calm and firmly poised against the 20+ knot winds, it was not impervious to the cold air. Deeply inside two sleeping bags, I was still tensely chilled in the biting temperature.

There are few things quite as humbling and centering like sleeping in a tent in Antarctica. Out in these harsh elements, one is called to be completely present with the force of this icy, windy continent—one must stay mindful, or face severe risks. Thomas, 1stborn and I have been remarking that living in ICEPAC, verses at the main base, puts one in this mindset. It has been aligning us with the reality of where we are on the earth. Our new motto for ICEPAC: Keeping it real in Antarctica…

One of my goals here in Antarctica this expedition season was to explore the possibility of the ICEPAC structure, in tandem with its wind/solar power, as the living space for my proposed 30-day field expedition for the production of The Polar Project. I need a structure that can house 6-8 team members, store our provisions for the potential month-long recording time, and provide workspace for monitoring the equipment, footage and audio. When Thomas and I first spoke, the intent was to come and see it work in the field first hand. The experiment was to live in the space for as long as we could once it was in operational order.

Although shorter than we had originally hoped, the time I spent in ICEPAC gave me ample opportunity to consider its potential for The Polar Project’s field structure. I believe the structure itself is a genius design in many ways. For example, the geodesic skeleton and the ovular shape made it completely feasible in strong winds. The harder the wind blew, the stronger its grip of the earth—even in the fiercest winds we had on this trip, the core structure didn’t even so much as vibrate in the wind!

There are several key things that I have been considering which would help regulate the temperature better from day to night, as well as keep it generally warmer. With a bit of innovation, the 2.0 version of this extreme weather habitat should be the perfect home for The Polar Project.
***