freeze/thaw is an iterative installation inspired by rock glaciers, an essential and largely unknown part of alpine environments. Unlike glaciers made of pure ice, in a rock glacier the ice is protected from warming temperatures by a blanket of debris several meters thick. These will be the last glaciers of the Anthropocene. Due to the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle, these massive rock piles also creep slowly forward, creating striking ripples and furrows in their form.
The work was first conceived and realized for the Asifakeil at the Musuemsquartier in Vienna, Austria. The installation uses sand and sediments collected from two rock glaciers and one glacier in the Austrian alps, all of which are part of the Danube river catchment. Austria is home to 5769 rock glaciers, but only 2309 still contain ice and feed their hydrological catchments. During my Fulbright/Q21 residency at the Museumsquartier in Vienna, I infused these sediments with frozen water from the Danube to create miniature rock glaciers. Using a technique practiced on economically significant glaciers at ski areas, I wrap these miniature rock glaciers in synthetic blankets as a way of protecting them from anthropogenic influence and record their freeze/thaw cycles as a way of translating a Deep Time phenomenon into more visible Human Time. The resulting videos are complimented with sound design by Baltimore artist Maksym Prykhodko and installed as a response to the architecture of the space. Despite their fragility, these miniature rock glaciers find an uneasy equilibrium in the urban environment, offering viewers a moment to pause and sync their breath with the natural alpine cycles as transitory antidote to climate anxiety.
Exhibition List
KUBIS III - Expanded Exhibition, Künstlerhaus Factory, Vienna, Austria, 15 – 20 May, 2024
SPARK VI, The Peale, Baltimore, MD, USA, 26 October – 26 November 2023
Sweaty Eyeballs: Outside the Frame, Current Space, Baltimore, MD, USA, 8 September – 14 October 2023
Video City: Ancient Cycles, Manchester, U.K. 13-17 June, 2023
Asifakeil at the Museumsquartier, Vienna, Austria. 19 April – 26 May, 2023.
Press
Interview by ASIFA Austria
freeze/thaw, Museumsquartier, Vienna
freeze/thaw, Museumsquartier, Vienna
freeze/thaw Museumsquartier, Vienna
Miniature rock glacier made of sand
Students from Manchester School of Art inspect the mini-rock glacier
freeze/thaw The Peale, Baltimore, USA (detail)
freeze/thaw The Peale, Baltimore, USA
The Innere Olgrube rock glacier in Austria where the sand was collected for the piece
A synthetic blanket covers a shrinking glacier at the Kaunertal ski area in Austria. Fragments of these blankets were used in the artwork.
Sound for the piece was made with field recordings and studio recordings of the sand and then arranged into the composition.
