Australian Antarctic Territory Fellowship

David Bridie has been awarded the Australian Antarctic Territory Fellowship. This will see him travel to Antarctica and embark on an immersive creative process resulting in a new body of work inspired by the ice continent.

A source of curiosity to many, the highly protected wilderness environment of Antarctica can only be accessed by artists through this fellowship.David and video artist Keith Deverell will travel to Antarctica, guided by the research of scientist Dr. Joel Pedro, (Lead Scientist of the Australian Antarctic Division's Million Year Ice Core Project) to create a live art performance and audio-visual projection installation which speaks to our rapidly changing climate.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. The deafening quiet, the scale and stark beauty of the cryosphere, the frightening repercussions of a melting ice shelf. It is this that we will capture, film and record. We will soak the audience in the ambience of wilderness, the strangeness of this unique place, and also provoke thought and action in the viewer. Because we must act. That is a given.’David will capture a cross section of the sounds of Antarctica: the interaction of wind, ice and snow and integrate it with audio sourced from archival recordings and recorded statements made by influential Antarctica philosophers, scientists, and historians based both at the Antarctica camp and in Australia. 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.