Someone is looking into Philippe Boissonet’s head:
Calvicia (toma de conciencia de Atlas), 2007
It’s been an extraordinary experience to find so many points of connection between the artists who have worked in Antarctica … more than I can possibly write immediately. There is much I am thinking, and feeling, and drawing.
We speak of our connections with Antarctica as with the world and all its landscapes and people as a whole.
New Zealand artist Phil Dadson speaks of feeling being on the Earth’s surface in Antarctica as different from other places. He felt the Earth revovling…watching the sun dip …rather tip…the horizon…with a sense of really being on a moving planet. The word visceral is used by many here to describe this quality of connection.
My own experience, of standing there, feeling *not just knowing ( …that everywhere else and everyone else …is around you, in all directions…was validated by talking with them and seeing their work.
Experiencing Antarctic landscape inspired us all to look at THIS world differently. We are not so interested in making Antarctic landscapes as internal landscapes that look into ourselves as humans on this planet> human mindscapeS. In Antarctica you can get outside the usual ways of seeing at reality. You can feel it.
I wish I could show you some pictures I have taken of the work. You will see more shortly when I have access to an English speaking computer.
Intense feelings of understanding seems to envelop us as we worked together to set up the gallery, and lived together in the same hotel. We shared our Antarctic experiences on many levels. And this new experience, for all of us, of being in Buenos Aires.
I have seen some extraordinary theatre and art and dance here…in the streets and in the large arts complexes.
Buenos Aires is a place of extremes…of rich and poor. There are many words people use in Spanish for poor … like the words for ice that have evolved in Inuit language. There is so much poverty … nuances in the language express its depth.
I have traveled in a boat along the delta, where waterways replace roads, and people live amongst the forest.
Spending time with the people who organised the event … with their families…their children…I sense their connections with each other, and their landscape. The Argentinian expression of connection felt between people is the Tango…felt through the eyes and body…visceral. I danced the Tango, with a very young man, and then with a very old man. Both extraordinary in that we were dancing for the dance itself. It was as if we danced to keep the dance alive. It reminded me of how knowledge of land and beast connections in Australia are transmitted through Aboriginal dance.
Argentinians know they are connected with Antarctica…the physical extension of their country.
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Tonight I leave for London. One of our artists, Philippe Boissonet, has left already to show work there… in a show called Electric Blue. I will see him there.
I cannot access my Email here because the keyboard does not behave in a familiar way, and my password is impossible to translate!