Residency: The last Ice Project

Project Objectives

1. As lead artist, Brian will work with Emile Holba to create a series of photographic portraits, and Charles Monroe-Kane to record conversational interviews with community members. This work will document their stories and impressions of ice, its importance, the changing environment, and their personal stories. All interviews will be conducted via an interpreter/translator to ensure those we interview can speak in the language they are most comfortable with. These portraits and interviews will be an important part of the Last Ice Project.
2. Presented as an in person exhibition in ILLU, Art and Science Hub, Ilulissat Greenland, the photographic portraits and edited conversations will also travel globally to raise awareness and foster dialogue about climate change and its impact on the indigenous Greenlandic Inuit Community (using a QR Code system to listen to the voices of the portraits). Additionally, Charles will create a podcast from the interviews to give voice and story to those directly impacted by climate change. Those stories will be presented in the preferred language of the interviewee and translated into English and Danish. These materials will be integrated into the traveling exhibition The Last Ice Project.
3. Field testing and artistic exploration will also be crucial to the working development of The Last Ice Project. During the residency, Brian will venture onto the fjord with polar explorer Dwayne Fields, Hans Sandgreen (a Greenlandic Inuit fishermen and dog sled musher), Emile, Charles and Angaangaq to perform a ceremony, test the extraction, carving, camping and test the sled to be used to transport the glacial ice. They will test carve a 4½-foot piece of ice and transport it with a sled, using a team of trained dogs. Shaman Angaangaq will join them for part of the field test, assist in selecting the ancient ice, and perform a solstice ceremony. These tests and this rehearsal is necessary to ensure success with The Last Ice Project expedition the following year in 2026.

This hands-on exploration will inform the artistic and logistical aspects of the project, blending artistry with the stark reality of Arctic landscapes. Brian will also meet with fishermen and logistics experts for the planning the expedition in 2026 with the entire team, and work with a dogsled builder to construct a sled to transport the ice.

Artists’ Biographies

Lead Artist: Brian Goggin (San Francisco, USA). Brian has been a practicing multidisciplinary artist for over 30 years, creating site-specific works and urban interventions like Defenestration, Language of the Birds and Caruso’s Dream. Brian uses non-traditional locations and a wide range of materials to create dynamic and intriguing interactions with the environment through sculpture, public artwork, performance and museum and gallery installations. Goggin’s work is informed by his focus on the relationship between human action and the natural environment. He has created permanent public artworks for Yahoo!, Sacramento International Airport, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Avalon Bay Developers, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, Palo Alto Arts Commission, Seattle Arts Commission, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the San Jose Museum of Art. He is an alumnus of San Francisco State University and Cambridge University in the U.K. His live-work studio is at Project Artaud in the Mission District San Francisco.

Radio Documentary & Podcast Lead: Charles Monroe-Kane (Wisconsin, USA). Charles is a Peabody award-winning journalist with over 25 years of on-air radio experience. Charles is an interviewer and senior producer for To the Best of Our Knowledge (heard on some 265 NPR stations). He has also served as executive producer of two nationally syndicated public radio programs and has produced radio pieces on NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition as well as on Snap Judgment and This American Life. His documentary on Jim Thorpe won the 2023 best radio feature award by the Indigenous Journalist Association. He is a recording artist with A.M.P.RECS, a music label based in Guadalajara México that focuses on electroacoustic and experimental works.

Photographic Artist: Emile Holba (Hertford, UK). Emile is an award winning, distinguished photographer specializing in documentary and portrait photography. His work is driven by a curiosity about communities, creative arts, the cosmos, scientific endeavors, and the complexities of climate change, all framed with a strong sense of place. In addition to his photographic pursuits, Emile has made significant contributions to broadcasting and the arts. He created a five-part BBC Radio 4 series called Welcome to the Quiet Zone and co-produces the annual Ice Music Festival in Norway. He has received high commendations in the Belfast International Photo Festival’s Open Submission in both 2022 and 2023. His project Arktisk Grenseland is available as Field Notes 015 at Another Place Press. Emile was also a winner in the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain 2019, and his work is featured in Portrait of Britain Vol 2 by Hoxton Mini Press. During March 2024 Emile travelled to Ilulissat to co-produce a special edition of the Ice Music Festival called the ‘Greenland Sessions’. Whilst in town seeking a deeper sense of connection with the area, he created a monograph called Avannaata’s Analogous Light.