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Artist Statement

Melting Away

Melting Away documents the polar regions of our planet, their environments, life forms, history of human exploration, and the communities that work and live there. The images were made in both the Arctic regions of Svalbard, Greenland, Iceland, and Antarctica. Nick Cave once sang, “All things move toward their end.” Icebergs give the impression of doing just that, in their individual way, much as humans do; they have been created of unique conditions and shaped by their environments to live a brief life in a manner solely their own. Some go the distance, traveling for many years, slowly being eroded by time and the elements; others get snagged on the rocks and are whittled away by persistent currents. Still, others dramatically collapse in fits of passion and fury. This essay chronicles just a handful of the many thousands of icebergs that are currently headed to their end.

I approach the images of icebergs as portraits of individuals, much like family photos of my ancestors. I seek a moment in their life in which they convey their unique personality, some connection to our own experience, and a glimpse of their soul which endures. As a Shinnecock Indian I was raised to know that all things are interconnected, that there is no such thing as separation or isolation. This way of seeing the world may seem foreign to you, for thousands of years we have listened to a story that gave man dominion over all the earth and its creatures. (How’s that been working out for us or the other life forms we share with this planet?) It is time for an older story to be brought back into the light, the one that reminds us that every molecule in our body was once part of a star. That we share this planet, that it does not belong to us, that we belong to it. That we all live in service to each other and that every action has an effect.

As I write this I have in my mind the poetry, the voice, of John Trudell:

We Hear what you say
One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth
The people walk upon
We are the land
How do we sell our Mother ?
How do we sell the stars ?
How do we sell the air ?
– from his poem Crazy Horse

When I first began traveling to the Arctic and Antarctic over ten years ago, I went out of curiosity, a need to see with my own eyes the glory and magnificence of my planet, our planet, our home. I documented what I felt and saw with my camera, I bore witness and knew that with this privilege came the responsibility of sharing that work, sharing the story and the experience of being in that sacred place of our planet. Without the frozen poles we lose climate stability. Within a decade the images I made were no longer what we had but what we were losing at an alarming rate, but things are always changing – adapt or die. There is no real death or end for an iceberg, only eternal recycling. The ice becomes the water becomes the vapor in the cloud to fall again as rain or snow. This is the way of it. How sad that my images will be the record for what it once looked like in a time when humans had intellect, technology, and reason but no will to see beyond their own timeline and possessed no desire to be a good ancestor.

About

Camille Seaman was born in 1969. She graduated in 1992 from the State University of New York at Purchase, where she studied photography with Jan Groover and John Cohen. Her photographs have been published in National Geographic Magazine, Italian Geo, German GEO, TIME, The New York Times Sunday magazine, Newsweek, Outside, Zeit Wissen, Men’s Journal, Seed, Camera Arts, Issues, PDN, and American Photo among many others, She frequently leads photographic workshops. Her photographs have received many awards including: a National Geographic Award, 2006; and the Critical Mass Top Monograph Award, 2007. She is a TED Senior Fellow, Stanford Knight Fellow as well as a Cinereach Filmmaker in Residence Fellow.

Camille Seaman strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature.

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Floor Plan

Amy Rindskopf's Terra Novus

At the market, I pick each one up, pulled in by the shapes as they sit together, waiting. I feel its heft in my hand, enjoy the textures of the skin or peel, and begin to look closer and closer. The patterns on each individual surface marks them as distinct. I push further still, discovering territory unseen by the casual observer, a new land. I am like a satellite orbiting a distant planet, taking the first-ever images of this newly envisioned place.

This project started as an homage to Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30 (I am, ironically, allergic to peppers). As I looked for my subject matter at the market, I found that I wasn’t drawn to just one single fruit or vegetable. There were so many choices, appealing to both hand and eye. I decided to print in black and white to help make the images visually more about the shapes, and not about guessing which fruit is smoothest, which vegetable is greenest.

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Tricia Gahagan

 

Photography has been paramount in my personal path of healing from disease and

connecting with consciousness. The intention of my work is to overcome the limits of the

mind and engage the spirit. Like a Zen koan, my images are paradoxes hidden in plain

sight. They are intended to be sat with meditatively, eventually revealing greater truths

about the world and about one’s self.

 

John Chervinsky’s photography is a testament to pensive work without simple answers;

it connects by encouraging discovery and altering perspectives. I see this scholarship

as a potential to continue his legacy and evolve the boundaries of how photography can

explore the human condition.

 

Growing my artistic skill and voice as an emerging photographer is critical, I see this as

a rare opportunity to strengthen my foundation and transition towards an established

and influential future. I am thirsty to engage viewers and provide a transformative

experience through my work. I have been honing my current project and building a plan

for its complete execution. The incredible Griffin community of mentors and the

generous funds would be instrumental for its development. I deeply recognize the

hallmark moment this could be for the introduction of the work. Thank you for providing

this incredible opportunity for budding visions and artists that know they have something

greater to share with the world.

Fran Forman RSVP