‘IMMUTABILITY’

‘IMMUTABILITY’ – the state of not changing

Voyages, to both the Arctic and Antarctic, have shaped Anne Lydiat’s photographic practice, being both inspiration and subject matter. She was awestruck by the immensity of the icebergs she encountered that had calved from glaciers and ice sheets during the summer months and drifted southward along the coast. Many were grounded, some frozen in ice and others moving along ocean currents destined to melt and disappear over time. 

For the original series of artworks, entitled ‘Of Mutability’, Lydiat selected some of the digital colour photographs of Arctic icebergs from her 2016 voyage around Scoresby Sund, Greenland. The images were then converted to black and white and printed onto poster paper with low-grade inks, guaranteed to fade and disappear over time. Some of the prints were hung inside behind glass and bleached by the sun, others were hung outside and left to the elements for several weeks. Lydiat used these experimental photographic images as objects, and like the actual icebergs have been subjected to the vagaries of climate. The faded, dematerialised, images have now been ‘freeze framed’ and printed with high quality inks and paper that have permanently suspended the moment of irreversible change.