Adele Jackson New Zealand
I’m currently exploring the connection between the sun, Antarctica, and human activity over the austral summer season. I describe myself as an environmental artist. I’m interested in the interrelationships between people, places, culture and nature. In 2017, I moved from the UK to New Zealand to study for a PhD exploring 'the value of artists working in Antarctica'.
At times my work is sculptural, at others it is photographic. I often engage directly with place and nature, sometimes in ways that could be described as ‘land art’. In some of my earlier work ‘socially engaged practice’ would be a fitting description.
Increasingly I'm interested in making art in which nature and natural forces are integral to the creative process. In my most recent work, ‘Antarctic Sun Lines’, the sun and the tilted rotation of the Earth are active in making the images. The project has grown to become an international collaboration with over 30 Antarctic research and heritage institutions. The work records the narrow window of time when human and biospheric activity in Antarctica are at their peak. The images visually locate Antarctica in relation to the dynamics of the solar system and the natural forces that create and sustain life on Earth.
My long-held interest in Antarctica has inspired other work. ‘Antarctic Circles’, a series of sculptural books exploring Antarctica’s natural environment, science and heritage in the context of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and subsequent environmental protocols. ‘Leave only Footprints’, a series of land art actions and photographs exploring the tensions between my involvement in polar tourism and human environmental impacts.
In 2007 I co-founded ‘Art Hike’, which is an open invitation to artists and creatively minded people to meet and hike together. The creative practice is the act of bringing people together to share an experience of place and a space for connections and ideas to form. In earlier works, I have preserved memories of ‘place’ and identity’ through collections of natural and man-made objects. What started out as a personal way to respond to place, grew into a meaningful way to engage others in sharing and preserving personal memories and stories.
Artwork
Positive Objects, Treasured objects cast in resin, 2010
Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Found objects cast in resin, 2006
Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, Found objects cast in resin, 2010
Shell Island, Wales, Found objects cast in resin, 2010
Art Hike, Socially engaged and land art, 2007-2018
Unsere Strassen - I found this in the street, Found objects cast in resin, 2008
Antarctic Message Cylinders, Sculptural book, 2014
Antarctic Colour Swatch, Sculptural book, 2014
Ice Crystal Library, Sculptural book, 2014
Leave Only Footprints, Paradise Bay, Antarctic Peninsula, Land art photograph, 2014
Leave Only Footprints, Deception Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, Land art photograph, 2014
Antarctic Sun Lines - Scott's Hut, Cape Evans, Ross Island, Antarctica, Solargraph, 2017/18
Antarctic Sun Lines - Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, Hobart, Solargraph, 2017/18
Antarctic Sun Lines - Mario Zucchelli Station, Victoria Land, Antarctica, Solargraph, 2017/18
Antarctic Sun Lines - Anemometer Tower, Goudier Island, Antarctic Peninsula, Solargraph, 2015/16
Projects and exhibitions
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Public Talk: 10 Antarctic Changemakers27/09/2018 Part of the 2018 Antarctic Season Opening series of public events. This was pecha-kucha style evening with 10 speakers who each presented on different aspects of contemporary activity in Antarctica. Topics included marine biology, ice science, inspiring the next generation of explorers, art and culture, logistics and international cooperation.... [Read more] |
La Vida Conference Centre, Christchurch, New Zealand | Details |
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Conference: POLAR201824/06/2018 — 29/06/2018 POLAR2018 was a joint international polar conference organised by the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research and the International Arctic Science Committee. I gave presentations about my Antarctic Sun Lines solargraph project, and the developments in my PhD research, in which I’m exploring ‘the value of artists working in Antarctica’. |
Davos Conference Centre, Davos, Switzerland | Details |
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Public Talk: Looking South28/03/2018 I gave a public talk charting the development of art in Antarctica as a backdrop for a closer look at my own work and that of contemporary Antarctic artists. |
Christchurch Art Gallery / Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Christchurch, New Zealand | Details |
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Exhibition: Antarctic Circles06/08/2016 — 04/09/2016 A joint exhibition with artist, singer and songwriter, Lucy Bergman. An exhibition of photographs, sculptural books and music inspired by the Antarctic Treaty. |
The Artworks, Halifax, West Yorkshire | Details |
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Exhibition: Antarctic Circles01/10/2015 — 31/10/2015 A joint exhibition with artist, singer and songwriter, Lucy Bergman. An exhibition of photographs, sculptural books and music inspired by the Antarctic Treaty. |
The Barbican Centre Library, London | Details |
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Residency: Unsere Strassen03/05/2008 — 10/05/2008 Through participating in 'Open Engagement', a socially engaged arts practice conference in Canada, I met one of the founders of The Berlin Office and was invited to take up a residency there. The Berlin Office was an artist-owned and managed apartment in the Neukölln district of the Berlin, available for international artist residencies.... [Read more] |
The Berlin Office, Berlin, Germany | Details |
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Conference: Open Engagement: Art after Aesthetic Distance11/10/2007 — 13/10/2007 This was an international conference exploring ideas, relationships and connectivity within and through socially engaged arts practice. Social engagement was at the heart of the ethos, organisation and participation in the conference. Each participant was billeted with a member of the local community and left their host with a creative trace by... [Read more] |
University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada | Details |