CAPE FAREWELL project

http://capefarewell.com

The artist David Buckland, created Cape Farewell in 2001 to instigate a cultural response to climate change.Cape Farewell has brought together leading artists, writers, scientists, educators and media for a series of expeditions into the wild and challenging High Arctic. Together they have mapped, measured and been inspired by this awesome environment and have endeavoured to bring home stories and artworks that tell how a warming planet is impacting on this wilderness.Working internationally, they bring artists, scientists and communicators together to stimulate the production of art founded in scientific research. Using creativity to innovate, they engage artists for their ability to evolve and amplify a creative language, communicating on a human scale the urgency of the global climate challenge. Cape Farewell is widely acknowledged to be the most significant sustained artistic response to climate change anywhere in the world.
Cape Farewell is a charitable organisation made possible through sponsorship, partnerships and donations. Please help support Cape Farewell and make a Carbon Zero Donation.The artists associated with the Cape Farewell project have all been aware of the challenges involved in developing artworks driven by a single subject matter; climate change.The project is thorouly documented through and open to public at http://capefarewell.comthrough various subprojects.

ARTISTS

The project has been experimental from the outset but the willingness of the artists to participate, their sense of adventure and the way in which they have embraced the complexities of dealing with this subject matter, have resulted in a host of intriguing artworks exhibited across the UK, Europe and the World.The project has worked with Visual Artists, Sound Artists, Musicians, Comedians, Writers, Film-makers, Performance Artists, Journalists, Sculptors, Novelists, Painters, Artoonists, Ceramicists and Comedians. They continue to work with a huge variety of artists and collaborators to ensure the widest possible audience for this crucial subjet.

David Buckland,

artists and Director of Cape Farewell

Since 2001 David Buckland has created and now directs the Cape Farewell project, bringing artists, scientists and educators together to collectively address and raise awareness about climate change. The artists have already been the subject of a film for The Culture Show and a BBC documentary. The art resulting from these fruitful journeys has been shown at the Natural History Museum, London, the Liverpool Biennial and the Sage Gateshead, Newcastle.
David is a designer, artist and film-maker whose lens-based works have been exhibited in numerous galleries in London, Paris and New York and collected by the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Getty Collection, Los Angeles amongst others.In 1999 David presented a one-man show of digitally mastered portraits of performers at London's National Portrait Gallery, which attracted over 100,000 visitors. Three new commissions, all in the USA, from MasterCard, Vanguard Insurance and Royal Caribbean have just been completed. Each entailed huge digital constructions on glass for the new atriums of each company.

Beth Derbyshire,
artist

Beth Derbyshire joined Cape Farewell on the 2007 Art/Science Expedition. Taking almost three weeks, the expedition crossed the north Atlantic to the extreme frontline of climate change, then sailed south to explore East Greenland’s Blosseville Coast.Beth's work is inspired by drawing, dance/contact, communication and information systems. Through their creation and installation the work seeks to explore what it means to be an individual in a world where we, and our surroundings, are frequently categorised and classified.She is currently developing the

William Hunt's performance, Earth, Wind and Fire, was shown at the Westwerk Gallery in 2007 as part of the Art and Climate Change exhibitoin series in Hamburg. For this exciting new commission William employed garden patio furniture; the patio heater, water butt, washing line and decking, creating a situation in which the body is at the mercy of earth, wind and fire. The work was also shown at Cape Farewell's Late Night Friday at Whitechapel - a night of new songs, performances, artworks and information prompted by the urgency of climate change.William's endurance related performances involve a degree of musical performativity played out under some situation of physical duress; hanging upside down, spinning on a turntable and most recently under water.
Put Your Foot Down, 2006, saw a black BMW turned into a make shift aquarium. William filled the car with water, climbed into the driver's seat and taking deep gulps from an oxygen tank and sang out on exhalation.Narrative, set up through song is frustrated by physical restraints, evoking feelings of threat, danger and self-destruction. Hunt places himself at the centre of a sculptural tableaux and enacts a relentless, endless return to absurdity, mindful of the futility of grand gestures yet bound to show off.

SCIENCE PROGRAMM PARTNERS 

Cape Farewell exists because Director David Buckland read an article by a NASA scientist who said the window of opportunity for dealing with climate change was very short, perhaps less than 10 years. Cape Farewell is founded on the belief that dealing with climate change culturally or at least subjectively means there is a chance of achieving success is getting this movement started, where governments have perhaps failed.
Since it's conception, the knowledge about climate change and science research has directly influenced the programme of activity. Our expeditions are led by the science and the artwork and ideas that develop are founded in scientific research.They work with organisations across the UK and internationally to ensure that our work is rooted in science. For the 2007 and 2008 expeditions these have included National Oceanography Centre, University College London, British Geological Survey and Scottish Association of Marine Science.

British Geological Survey 

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a public sector organisation, advising the Government on all aspects of geoscience, and providing impartial advice to academia, industry and the general public. BGS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), who reports to the Office of Science and Innovation.NERC and BGS both regard climate change as being one of the dominant scientific research themes of our time. BGS Marine Geoscience, based in Edinburgh, are in talks with other national and international geological surveys, organisations and university departments with a view to setting up an Arctic research program, to try and further understand the feedback mechanisms that impact on our climate.
During the 2008 Disko Bay Expedition a team from the British Geological Survey joined the expedition to run extensive surveying of the seabed in the Arctic and learn more about the geology of the area. The science team from BGS ran five tracts in different locations, measuring between 2 and 12 miles. They used sound waves to image the submarine landscape and the team successfully uncovered beautifully imaged deep channels that had become infilled with up to 250m of sediments. They gained data from a variety of settings, and showed that the penetration of the sound waves is possible in an are

Dr Simon Boxall,
oceanographer

Simon Boxall is a lecturer in Oceanography at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. He has monitored ocean environments worldwide in force 11 gales and in the compete calm, from the air, space and underwater, tracking and monitoring pollution and environmental impact.
"The sad thing is that everyone assumes that cutting back on our CO2 emissions will necessarily be painful and expensive! For the average person in the street using less power, having better insulated homes, and more economical transport, will save them money and saves our environment and lifestyle. It’s a win/win situation."

Dr Carol Cotterill,
marine and coastal geoscientist

Carol initially studied Oceanography with Geology at the National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton (NOCS). After 3 months working in Chile for Raleigh International investigating the response of a freshwater terminating glacier on the Patagonian Icecap to climate change, she returned to do a Marine Geophysics Ph.D at NOCS. During the 3 years of research she investigated the behaviour of an active fault system in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece, and the seismic response to growth of an active system. After completing her Ph.D she went to work for BGS as a Coastal and Marine Geoscientist. The projects she works on are varied – ranging from habitat advisory work to managing the UK participation of the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) ERA-net program. Carol became involved with Cape Farewell in 2007, and is now actively involved in both the scientific research and educational aspects of the program.