Studio Antarctica

Pātaka Art+Museum

19 June - 18 September 2016

Gabby O'Connor

A creative collaboration between contemporary fine art and cutting edge scientific research.

Gabby O’Connor’s Studio Antarctica installation is the result of a creative collaboration between contemporary fine art and cutting edge scientific research. In 2015 O’Connor spent several weeks in Antarctica working in a shipping container laboratory on sea ice 4 metres thick over 500 metre deep McMurdo Sound. While making and researching her art, O’Connor helped world- renowned scientific research team, K131, document ice platelet structures found in these sub-zero oceans. This is part of a long-term art + science alliance that explores intersections between the two disciplines.

Studio Antarctica, the installation, is in three interconnected parts that reveals the processes of the project through photography, painting and drawing, a multi-channel video projection and a site specific sculptural work made from packaging tape and light.