Glacial Narratives: The Greenlandic Chapter

Glacial Narratives: The Greenlandic Chapter is an art exhibition presenting the responses by 3 artists to their times spent in Greenland, witnessing the visible and relentless loss of ice currently being endured by our planet. They wish to share lived experiences encountered in these unique and disappearing landscapes, together with their explorations of the material - ice - itself. As artists they are aware of their responsibility to future generations to question actions, and to contribute to debate and awareness-raising in any ways that art forms allow. In the global context of climate change, ice as an art material opens up a wealth of relevant avenues to explore: its surfaces, mass, melt, movement, sounds and translucency. Even with its inherent impermanence, ice offers a remarkably accessible view of our planet’s geological and paleoclimatological record. It readily morphs between solid and liquid states, allowing artists to work from the basic condition of change, creating a space for the audience to reflect on the issues.

Mary Walters is a visual artist from Edinburgh, living in her home city, and she shows drawings, prints, banners and laser-cut hangings; Elizabeth Bourne is a US citizen, currently living in Svalbard - she displays her giant cyanotypes; and Adam Sébire, an Australian artist/film-maker who was marooned in the Norwegian Arctic for 18 months during Covid-19 and now lives there, adds a filmic dimension with a 3-screen installation about “Cleaning an Iceberg”.
Mary was artist-in-residence at the Ilulissat Art Gallery with the Arctic Culture Lab in June 2023 and also visited the Uummannaq Polar Institute during that trip. She was inspired by the magnificence of icebergs in Disko Bay, the varying extent, forms, and shapes of sea ice around Ilulissat and Uummannaq, and the intricacies, colours and sounds of the Eqi glacier. With materials chosen for their light weight, her works present both immediate and remembered responses to her visit.

Elizabeth’s first trip to Greenland inspired a life-long love of the Arctic. Later visits to this extraordinary land deepened her feelings and strengthened her commitment to raising awareness of climate change through her art. The impact of these visits is currently captured in her works in cyanotype, both large and small-scale, as well as in her paintings.


Adam’s Greenland-inspired works are filmed during multi-month residencies in Upernavik and Uummannaq: small indigenous communities through whom he witnessed the impact of rapidly increasing temperatures and declining sea ice. Both of necessity and aesthetic choice, he uses the elevated vantage point afforded by aerial cameras to suggest non-human perspectives on this changing environment.

“We are visual artists and researchers, who have each spent considerable time in Arctic environments. Individually and collaboratively, we have developed a complementary series of works that not only raise awareness of the wonder of ice as a material, but also ask questions about its disappearance. We do not claim to have answers, but we know that we have a responsibility to future generations to question our actions, and to contribute to the climate debates in any ways that our art forms allow.”
Mary Walters (https://www.mary-walters.com)
Elizabeth Bourne (https://www.philotera.com)
Adam Sébire (https://www.adamsébire.info)

Category: Arts | Visual Arts | Galleries / Art

Artists: Mary Walters, Elizabeth Bourne, Adam Sebire