This blog is an archive of posts from December 2007 to April 2008. It chronicles my experience of the first Extended Season in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica as a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writer grantee. In 2008, for the first time, people remained in the Dry Valleys field camps after the summer research season ended. As daylight lessened, I filmed and photographed the landscape and science and made a body of work on paper consisting of watercolors, oil paintings and drawings. After I returned to New York I created a new body of work, which you can see on my website. The imagery and impressions I brought back from the Ice continue to inform my work. If you would like to see an archive of photographs from the extended season, send me an email or a friend request on Flickr. I encourage you to look through the posts and links of this blog for some fascinating information about one of the planet’s least known regions. Thanks for visiting!
Chris Kannen is a painter based in New York, the recipient of a National Science Foundation Award through the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. In February 2008 he travelled to Antarctica to gather optical and psychological impressions for a new body of work.
For two months Chris accompanied researchers in the McMurdo Dry Valleys as they gained new perspectives on how the small life of this extreme environment thrives despite the four-month disappearance of the sun. For the first time researchers witnessed the dramatic transition to polar night, as temperatures fall and daylight recedes from 24 hours of sun to total darkness in a matter of weeks. On Parhelion Pemmican Pack-Ice Pancake, Chris wrote descriptions and thoughts of his journey to Antarctica and this first-ever extended field season in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.
