Cape Farewell

The Cape Farewell project pioneers the cultural response to climate change by bringing artists, scientists, and communicators together to stimulate the production of art founded in scientific research. The project engages artists for their ability to evolve and amplify a creative language, communicating on a human scale the urgency of the global climate challenge. Under direction of artist David Buckland, the project uses expeditions to the high Arctic, coupled with exposure to research findings of climate scientists, to inspire artists to pioneer new works capable of producing a public response to the true scale of how our environment and climate are changing. Since 2003, the Cape Farewell project has tapped the talents of more than 50 artists – including photographers, sculptors, filmmakers, musicians, composers, writers, dancers, and performance artists. Each work is the artist’s personal response to the effects of changing weather patterns, disappearing ice, rising sea levels, alterations in biodiversity, and the build-up of toxic chemicals in the seemingly pristine landscape of the Arctic. Together, the works created as a result of the Cape Farewell project represent a body of art that heightens public awareness of the implications of global environmental change. Artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey created Stranded, a sculpture created from the retrieved bones from the carcass of a beached minke whale; the precious fragility of the sculpture enhances the importance of the whale, and the way in which it acts as a barometer in a complex marine environment. Working with fashion designer Jonathan Saunders, dance choreographer Siobhan Davies created Endangered Species. In this projection, small female figure dances inside a museum display case, her movements exaggerated by a costume of long bending rods that increase in number as her dance progress – at first liberating her by extending the boundaries of her body, then restricting and finally extinguishing her small form. Alex Hartlet’s photographic piece Nymark (Undiscovered Island) echoes the journeys of early Arctic explorers in describing the process of finding and naming a ‘new’ island – only Hartley’s island was uncovered as a consequence of the climate change-related melting of a glacier. Cape Farewell artworks have been displayed in major art galleries and museums around the world, but they have also been displayed in small-scale community settings. A number of works can be viewed on the project’s award-winning website. The following artists, scientists, and communicators are associated with Cape Farewell: David Buckland; Heather Ackroyd; Dan Harvey; Mojisola Adebayo; Laurie Anderson; Amy Balkin; Kathy Barber; Marcus Brigstocke; Luke Bullen; Sophie Calle; Vanessa Carlton; Peter Clegg; Nick Cobbing; Jarvis Cocker; Adriane Colburn; Sam Collins; Siobhan Davies; Gautier Deblonde; Marije De Haas; Beth Derbyshire; Jonathan Dove; Max Eastley; Nick Edwards; Gretel Ehrlich; Feist; Liam Frost; Francesca Galeazzi; Nathan Gallagher; Peter Gilbert; Ana Cecilia Gonzales Vigil; Anthony Gormley; Aminatu Goumar; Alex Hartley; David Hinton; Robyn Hitchcock; Gary Hume; William Hunt; Brian Jungen; Jude Kelly, Nicole Krauss; David Lan; Ruth Little; Vicky Long; Ian McEwan; Brenndan McGuire; Yann Martel; Daro Montag; Dallas Murphy; Michèle Noach; Lucy Orta; Jorge Orta; Suzan-Lori Parks; Sunand Prasad; Tracey Rowledge; Ryuichi Sakamoto; Anthony Santoro; Vikram Seth; Shlomo; Lemn Sissay; Julian Stair; Suba Subramaniam; Shiro Takatani; KT Tunstall; Clare Twomey; Chris Wainwright; Martha Wainwright; and Rachel Whiteread.