Abstract

• Live event
• Time 6pm, duration 1 hour
• Venue: Crowdcast
• Free

This time last year, the phrases self-isolation and social-distancing had just started to pepper our language as a global pandemic took hold. How does this kind of isolation compare with life in remote polar regions? And how does that affect the way we depict the poles in art and culture? Join our guests for a live discussion about isolation, art and the polar regions.

Christine Finn is a Channel Island born writer, photographer, and print and broadcast journalist, and draws on a range of media for her art work. She has lived and worked in the Arctic, and most recently has spent the pandemic living in Paris in a room just 8m2. In her work, she is steered by two main enquiries: what is ‘home’? and how does technology relate to art, culture and remoteness?

Stephen Roberts is a quaternary geologist working at the British Antarctic Survey. His current research focuses on reconstructing past environments on the Antarctic Peninsula, the Sub-Antarctic Islands, East Antarctica and South America to understand past changes in climate, ice sheet extent and thickness and sea level. Steve had an experience of extreme isolation while working in the field in Antarctica, becoming stranded for several days due to a change in the weather.

Sarah Airriess is currently working on a graphic novel adaptation of Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s book The Worst Journey in the World. The book is a remarkable account of the Terra Nova expedition, led by Captain Scott until his tragic death alongside his companions on the return from the South Pole. Despite the expedition being isolated far from home and help, the story Cherry-Garrard tells is of companionship and camaraderie.