David Bridie and Keith Deverell

It was a white Christmas for Australian Antarctic Art fellows, musician/composer David Bridie and video artist Keith Deverell. Delayed by COVID-19, they departed aboard the icebreaker, RSV Nuyina, in late December 2023.

Guided by the research of scientist Dr. Joel Pedro, (Lead Scientist of the Australian Antarctic Division’s Million Year Ice Core Project) they plan to create a live art performance and audio-visual projection installation speaking to our rapidly changing climate.

023/24 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellows Keith Deverell and David Bridie, image courtesy the artists.

Of the project, David says, “As scientists work to decipher climates of our past and fathom our futures, the artist’s role is to translate the science and to turn it into emotion; to illuminate and allow understanding.”

David captured the sounds of Antarctica–the interaction of wind, ice and snow–and integrated them with audio sourced from archival recordings and recorded statements made by influential Antarctica philosophers and scientists. The resulting work will be both a live art performance and an audio-visual projection installation to be presented at festivals, galleries, museums and for educational purposes.

“The Antarctic Arts Fellowship means so much to me as an artist because Antarctica is a place you think you will never get to see, just like space,” said Dr Deverell.

Keith Deverell’s journal, image courtesy Keith Deverell.

“Antarctica is so pivotal to the world, it is the source of so many crucial systems, oscillations and reverberations, to stand within them, experience them and interact with them is something very special.”

The Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship has been running since 1984 and is supported by the Australian Antarctic Division with additional support provided by ANAT since 2017.

Antarctica, K.Verell, 2023-2024, Courtesy of the Artists

Stay tuned for updates on the opening of the 2025 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship.

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