I have been invited to join some of my Arctic Circle expedition shipmates for a collaborative follow up residency at The Pocantico Centre in New York. The reunion has been initiated by the artist Daniel Kukla, and made possible with the support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Centre prides itself on its commitment to ecological sustainability and the arts, incorporating responsible environmental practices in all aspects of its residencies, including 100% wind-generated electricity and sustainable building practices. Find out more details about our plans for the residency below.
‘In autumn 2014, twenty-five artists boarded the tall ship Antigua for a two-week residency sailing the west coast of Spitsbergen, Svalbard located in the Arctic Circle. The Antigua reached 79°52 N, 011°48 E, just beyond Ny-Alesund, the world’s northernmost civilian settlement.
One of the artists, Daniel Kukla has initiated a follow up residency at The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund inviting fellow arctic residents Geoff Booras, Denise Iris, Sandra Kühne, Tamsin Relly Allison Rowe, and Katie Turnbull to participate.
Svalbard is an international territory with a unique history of exploration, land claiming and mapping in the name of resource exploitation and survival. The land has also been pursued for scientific discovery, physical challenge, artistic motivations and more recently, tourism. In light of this history, the artist’s motivations for undertaking the expedition provide a starting point for their Pocantico residency.
Coming from diverse and inter-disciplinary practices, the artists will have the opportunity to develop work – both individually and collaboratively – in response to their shared experience in the largely uninhabited Arctic landscape of glaciers, mountains and fjords. The group will investigate common themes within their practices from exploration, cartography and geology to temporality, impermanence and Climate Change.’