Tuesday 30 November
6 – 7.30pm
Online, via Zoom
Book here

Susan Schuppli‘s artist talk focuses on the body of research and work developed through the “Learning from Ice” project, which includes a documentary film shot in the Canadian Ice Core Archive and a US geochemistry lab (2019), followed by research into the changing conditions of sea ice and glacial retreat in the Svalbard Arctic Archipelago (2020). In October of this year she conducted fieldwork and related activities in the Zanskar region of the Himalayas with glaciologist Dr. Farooq Azam and Faiza Khan. This new work which she will highlight, combines scientific and artistic approaches to climate change by developing acoustic and aural methodologies in cryospheric research. Through the deployment of various situated “listening” practices, the project brought scientific research, local experiences, and inter-general knowledge of glaciers together.

This event is part of the NMG Development Programme (2021 – 2022). The project will include an expansive programme of free discussions, workshops and activities centred around NMG associates and available to the general public. This event is open to all, booking via Eventbrite is required. a Zoom link will be shared with attendees on the day of the event. Closed captions will be available to anyone wishing to access them. This event will be recorded.

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Susan Schuppli is an artist-researcher based in the UK whose work has explored the ways in which non-human witnesses, such as materials and objects, enter into public discourse and testify to historical events, especially those involving political violence, ethnic conflict, and war crimes. This research resulted in the monograph Material Witness: Media, Forensics, Evidence, published by MIT Press in 2020 as well as various artworks notably “Can the Sun Lie”, “Evidence on Trial” and “Nature Represents Itself”. Consequently Schuppli’s work has assumed many different modes of communication from legal analysis and public advocacy to theoretical reflection and creative exploration.

Her current research and artistic production expands these legal investigations to examine how environmental systems and the transformations brought about by global warming are also generating new forms of evidence; creating, in effect, a planetary archive of material witnesses. Much of this work has been developed through the multi-year “Learning from Ice” project which reflects upon the ways in which the different knowledge practices mediated by ice as we; as the differential experiences of cold are entangled with legal questions, human rights violations but also claims for social and environmental justice.

Schuppli’s artistic work has been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, and the US. She is a recipient of a COP26 Creative Commission “Listening to Ice” sponsored by the British Council, which involves scientific and community-based work at Drang Drung Glacier in Ladakh, India. She is Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London and is an affiliate artist-researcher and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture.

Links to websites:

LISTENING TO ICE

COLD CASES

Susan Schuppli