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 and for the first time, people remained in the Dry Valleys field camps after the summer research season ended. As each day got twenty minutes shorter, I took photographs and video of the landscape and science, and made a body of works on paper consisting of watercolors, oil paintings and drawings. I am currently working on a larger body of work in my studio in New York.
You can read about the work of the field team I was with on the website of the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research program. For examples of my artwork please visit chriskannen.com. If you are a Flickr member and would like to see an archive of photographs from the extended season, send me a personal 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 will travel to Antarctica to gather optical and psychological impressions for a new body of work.
For two months Chris will accompany researchers in the McMurdo Dry Valleys as they gain 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 will witness 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 will write descriptions and thoughts of his journey to Antarctica and this first-ever extended field season in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.
