‘Of Mutability’ (2024)

Lydiat has made several voyages above the Arctic Circle, firstly, sailing from Bergen up the coast of Norway as far as Kirkenes.  The following year she flew to Svalbard and then sailed onto Pyramiden, an abandoned Russian coal mining settlement. In 2016 she sailed onboard North Sailing’s silent electric-powered expedition vessel the ÓPAL to Scoresby Sund, known for the stunning natural beauty of towering cliffs, icebergs and glaciers, situated on the east coast of Greenland.

Lydiat was awestruck both by the surprise encounter with a polar bear, and the immensity of the icebergs that had calved from glaciers during the summer months and drifted southward along the coast. Many were grounded, some forever frozen in ice and others moving along with the ocean currents, all eventually destined to melt and disappear over time.

The digital photographs (originally colour and then converted to black and white) were made on the 2016 trip around Scoresby Sund. Lydiat then had them printed onto poster paper with low-grade b/w inks. The images were then exposed to the sun’s UV rays, both inside through glass and outside in the elements, over differing periods of time.

Installation shots Gallery 5, East Sussex College, Hastings.

These unique faded, dematerialised photographic images are intended to act as a metaphor for the effects that climate change is having on the Arctic seascape and ultimately our rising sea levels. They represent a tipping point, a moment of significant and irreversible change.