Michael John Whelan
Video Installation
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Echoes of evaporation
and submergence

1991
And they did live by watchfires
Nocturne
Untitled
Darkness had no need
These last breaths
The time of cruel wonders
was not yet over

In the black dark for good
Carapace
That we were to wait
Like force and matter
Lupus
20 Vertices, 30 Edges
and 160 Diagonals

Dune
Transit of Venus
Over the echoing gateway
Stars/Star
Shadowplay
Archway (diptych)
In the black dark for good
2016
5 x framed baryta prints, 28 x 34cm
installed at Systema Naturae, Kunsthall Stavanger (2017)
(1/7) Next




Once released onto the mountain, liquid from a cooling system 120 meters inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault freezes. Throughout this slow process it is influenced by the Arctic wind from across the mountain. As the liquid solidifies, the ground and stones are slowly covered by this glacially paced crystalline growth. Each photograph presents a single stone in various stages of envelopment. Two of the stones have been completely covered and are almost invisible shadows beneath the ice.