Artist's Statement

Shoshannah White

TEMPORARY GROUND contrasts photographs of a continually changing Polar landscape with photogram prints: camera-less images made directly from receding glacier ice, exposing abstract and familiar patterning found within the ice itself. 

Ice, at times translucent, opaque and often almost invisible, is in a constant state of flux. In glacier form, it is melting, growing, compressing. From liquid to solid, it holds our planetary history in its transparent layers and informs the future based on the past. 

The images included highlight underwater photographs of icebergs captured in Svalbard, Norway as well as photograms made on-site in Alaska with melting glacier-ice gathered from Prince William Sound and printed in a temporary darkroom. 

Informed by concerns of the environment, the work considers an impacted planet, a collective history the glacier ice holds, and the sense of connection/disconnection we have with the world we inhabit. Interested in ideas of the unknown, the work employs translucent and reflective materials (beeswax, metal dust) that shift and change based on light and perspective. Placing recognizable imagery next to abstractions, I'm interested in rethinking our understanding of ice and our relationship to the natural world.