Polar Wandering, 2005-06

Polar Wandering is a web-based artwork that recorded the three-month journey the artist made in 2005-2006 during an Arts Council England International Fellowship to Antarctica jointly sponsored by The British Antarctic Survey.

By regularly uploading longitudinal and latitudinal data recorded on a personal GPS tracking system to the project website www.polarwandering.co.uk, the artist translated her movements into a continuous, line-drawing charting her journey. The 27,856-mile-long, zoomable, interactive, digital drawing is also embedded with photographs pinned to the line at the point and time of their creation.

The permanent infrastructures of the British Antarctic research stations at Bird Island, Signy Island, King Edward Point and Rothera all feature in the drawing, alongside historic locations such as Earnest Shackleton's grave and a whaling station on the South Atlantic island of South Georgia. Much of the human-made physical paraphernalia surrounding each research station is mapped too in addition to features from the natural environment. The perimeters of landing strips, satellite domes, shipping containers, remote field stations, weather stations and boat houses are all given equal attention to more ephemeral, non-human phenomena such as the artist's winding route around a nesting colony of Wandering Albatross, or a beach crammed with birthing Elephant Seals. Polar Wandering also exists as a personal diary of the artist's journey, documenting for example her first attempts at skiing on Christmas Day, learning to drive a snowmobile, a snowball fight with fellow researchers on Signy Island, and the more mundane domestic journeys between her sleeping quarters, the canteen and the building she worked in.

From this digital drawing, the artist also produced a portfolio of ten limited edition hand-printed screenprints each highlighting a different detail from her journey.

Alongside Polar Wandering the artist made a series of video works during her visit to Antarctica - Soup, Wanderers, Horizon (Port, Starboard) and Crevasse.

This project was developed in collaboration with Locus+