This is a past event
Exhibits range from borrowed contemporary art to a substantial selection of Inuit artefacts and scientific instruments, maps, photographs, a hortus siccus and expedition books and diaries of polar explorers. With historical material creatively used in audio-visual/slide shows.
In collaboration with the Special Collections Centre at Aberdeen. Co-curated by Professor Peter Davidson and Sophie Dietrich, who is researching for a PhD in History of Art as member of the Northern Temperament research group.
The Concept of the Exhibition
The Far North – Frozen Stars, Shifting Ice and the Silence Beyond explores the manifestation of the Idea of The Far North in contemporary art, historical artefacts and written words and, is divided into four sections. Exhibition visitors will follow in the footsteps of European Arctic explorers of the 19th century.
- Visitors will commence their voyage in the European North, like their forebears.
- Second section depicts the preparation for such a journey, and the cultural exchange between native people and Arctic explorers is considered.
- Third section is dedicated to marvels and monsters of The Far North and contrasts the reality of Arctic flora and fauna as experienced by the Arctic explorers with the creatures and wonders they might have expected to encounter.
- Final section of the exhibition addresses the visitor´s imagination of the Far North.
Today, we associate the Arctic with subjects like global warming, environmental changes, soon-to-be-ice-free shipping routes and the ownership of land, sea and natural resources. In popular consciousness, however, the Arctic lives as a large number of impressions collected in images and stories.
We thus seek to encourage the visitor to face their own Idea of the Far North at the end of their journey, and believe that understanding is fostered by knowledge of the earlier history.
In addition, we judge that the understanding of cultural concepts lying behind aesthetic choices or written words, can contribute to scientific discourse on an interdisciplinary level.
Further information on related events, public recitals and lectures will follow shortly.
If you should have further questions, then please email Sophie Dietrich.
The Gallery Opening Hours: Monday to Saturday 1000hrs to 1600hrs (open late Thursday till 1900hrs) and Sunday 1200hrs to 1600hrs.
This free exhibition is open to the public - All welcome!
- Speaker
- Various
- Hosted by
- Special Collections Centre
- Venue
- The Sir Duncan Rice Library
- Contact
-
Sophie Dietrich sophie.dietrich@abdn.ac.uk