Due North

Almost no other area of the planet is gripping human fascination as firmly as the polar regions are, mythical and inaccessible locations that have drawn and challenged everyone that ventures into them. DUE NORTH brings together 5 contemporary artistic positions. Three of them are directly influenced by arctic regions, be it geographically, geopolitically, climatically or historically. This show positions these views alongside two other artists whose work aesthetic is reminiscent of the landscapes found beyond the 60th parallel north. To let them enter into a dialogue and have their unique voices tell tales of the Great North. Be it by documenting destruction, in an attempt to preserve the status quo in works that can be seen as a monument to human-made impact into the planet’s ecosystem, or by its sheer texture evoking similarities of glacial surfaces and frozen oceans. Climate change is affecting the region at twice the speed than the rest of our planet, global temperature is already 1°C above pre-industrial levels and scientists predict a potential worst-case scenario of a 3.5°C increase by 2035. Due to global warming, polar regions are becoming more accessible, bringing neoliberal opportunities to the area through tourism and other business interests, like oil drilling. What was once an impenetrable maze of patches of lands in the grips of permafrost and frozen bodies of water, ravaged by strong winds, has opened up in modern times. The arctic regions of our planet are under pressure from an array of changes and threats. Scientists are forced to revise forecasts for the future of climate change and its influence on glaciers and sea ice in ever shorter intervals. Rising temperatures endanger flora and fauna, with species finding it harder to adapt to a challenging ecosystem, which in recent times is constantly getting warmer, forcing changes in foraging and migration patterns of carnivores and herbivores. By that extent, also affecting the indigenous inhabitants of those regions as well. Warmer climate offers the possibility of an arctic gold rush. Geopolitical interests, deregulation of environmental protection laws, all fueled by the powerful force of profit. The once inaccessible frozen lands may hold up to 10 billion tonnes of oil and gas deposits, tin, manganese, gold, nickel, lead, platinum and diamonds, rare earths, as well as fish and even lucrative new freight routes. Glorified ideas of ‘Ultima Thule’, a frozen wonderland in the North, as portrayed as early as the 18th century by romanticist painters like Caspar David Friedrich or William Bradford, by that making it into literature and the global collective memory, is clashing with the harsh reality of climate change and hard scientific facts. DUE NORTH challenges the notion of the pristine, untouchable, overwhelming, ever present white wasteland and having to accept the fact that nothing is safe from global change of temperature, not even, or rather especially not, the arctic ice cap. This group show aims at investigation on how art can function as a barometer for the destabilisation of global structures, linking artistic process and awareness to what could essentially be an indicator, advocator, potentially even an inciter, of altering mindsets and cultural change.