Ronald Cornelissen

 
From 2 to 20 October 2024, I stayed aboard tall ship Antigua in Svalbard for the Arctic Circle’s residency programme. It was my second stay in Svalbard in connection with my work. My interest in Svalbard and the Arctic began with a work I made in 2013, The Hyperborean Garden and in the summer of 2018 I stayed in Svalbard for a residency at Galleri Svalbard and, at the invitation of Dr Maarten Loonen, a stay at the Dutch Arctic Station in Ny-Ålesund run by the University’s Arctic Centre. At the time I got into conversation with Maarten Loonen about my visit to Ny-Ålesund, the focus of my plans was still very much in line with the topics that formed the basis for The Hyperborean Garden: the politically charged boreal mythology of the High North.

But in conversations with Maarten Loonen prior to my stay in Ny-Ålesund, we were soon talking about another topic that cannot be avoided when talking about the polar regions: the ecological consequences of climate change in the north. He had seen first-hand the pace and effects of climate change during the 25 years he spent at the Dutch polar station for his research on the barnacle goose. Partly because of these conversations, my interests began to shift from political mythology to ecology.

The most extensive work to emerge from this stay in Ny-Ålesund is a series of 20 large drawings entitled HÖLL. It is a transhistorical work in which a famous story from Dutch maritime history, The Wintering on Nova Zembla, is extrapolated to the here and now to portray both the geopolitical and ecological complexities of the Arctic. Besides that I have also made a series of drawings referring to the legacy of mining in Svalbard and, with graphic designer Simon Davies, created a publication following the work HÖLL.

What is barely touched upon in all these drawings, however, is the incredible landscape of Svalbard. In HÖLL the landscape is defined mostly by the exploits of the men in these drawings and hardly in the way it presents itself to us. It is a landscape that resonated deeply in me and in everyone who sees it and that is something I wanted to address ever since I came back from that first trip to Svalbard and my trip to Greenland in 2019.

So I have participated in the Arctic Circle Residency Program in October 2024 to develop a new series of landscape drawings using the rapidly changing landscape of the far north and the idea of ‘weird ecology’ as a starting point. After my stay aboard the Antigua, I now want to incorporate the impressions and knowledge gained into a number of large-scale landscape drawings which focus on water and ice, portraying landscapes not merely as passive scenery but as entities with agency — or even as actors in their own right. My interest lies in exploring the unsettling idea of nonhuman agency and the fear of monstrosity it evokes.

Reflecting on Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, among others, I want to delve into these notions of ‘weirdness’ and ‘monstrosity’ as a way for understanding the intricate and often uneasy relationship between humans (or culture) and nature.

Many thanks to the Antigua crew, to Tuomas Kauko, Sanna Häkkänen, Lars Holt and Sarah Gerats for all their help during our voyage and for keeping us safe and to Aaron T. O’Connor for having me on this trip. I would also like to thank the Mondriaan Fund for their support.
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The Arctic Circle facilitates an annual expedition programme initiated by artists and scientists. Founded in 2009 by Aaron T. O’Connor, The Arctic Circle brings together international artists, musicians, writers, scientists and architects who jointly explore the Arctic Svalbard archipelago and the Arctic Ocean aboard a specially equipped expedition ship. I was part of the 2024 Arctic Autumn Expedition, which ran from 2 October to 20 October 2024. During the trip, we were accompanied by three guides led by Sarah Gerats. Initially, the plan was to sail south from Longyearbyen along the west coast of Svalbard but weather conditions dictated otherwise, eventually deciding that we would sail northwards.

After a night in Longyearbyen, we departed on the evening of 3 October for Ymerbukta, a fjord at the northwest tip of Isfjorden where we spent the night. On 4 October  we landed on the islet of Brenningsøya in front of Esmarkbreen (glacier). From there, we we advanced northwards the strait Forlandsundet to St Jonsfjorden. On Saturday, 5 October, we  spent time on a small headland full of ice blocks near Osbornbreen in the morning and later that day a small group hiked  towards Konowbreen at a place called Konowbukta.

 
On 6 October, we landed on a small island in Lilliehöökfjorden in front of the huge ice wall of Lilliehöökbreen and spent the night in the lee of Signehamna. The following morning, we went ashore there and looked for the remains of the German Kunspe and Nusbaum weather stations from WWII. From there, we sailed to Laksebu on the west coast of Spitsbergen and went ashore at Diesetletta at the trappers’ cabin Laksebu. During the night we sailed to a small island called Moffen.

Moffen is a small island located just north of the 80th parallel on the northern side of Spitsbergen. Unlike all the other places we had seen so far and would see later, the island was completely flat and nowhere protrudes more than two metres above the sea surface. This makes it easily accessible to marine mammals. The island is protected because it is one of the main resting places for walruses, which we also saw on the beach on the 7th. As far as I was concerned, it was one of the most special places we visited during our trip with the Antigua. The light that day changed by the hour, and it was truly indescribably beautiful. When the sky became overcast, we sailed on to the islet of Hansøya in Lady Franklinfjorden on Gustav-V-land, a peninsula of the island of Nordaustlandet in northeastern Svalbard.

 
On Wednesday, 9 October, we went ashore at Jacobpynten on the north side of the magnificent glacier Nordre Franklinbreen. The next day, we sailed on to Murchisonfjorden where we anchored at Snaddvika and landed at Fargefjellet in the afternoon. The wind was strong and the landing was brief as a polar bear was spotted by Sanna, one of our guides. On Friday, the 11th, the wind remained strong, and we sailed back west. At dusk, we managed to land at Gråhuken to visit the trapper hut made famous by Christiane Ritter’s book. In the summer of 1934, Christiane Ritter travelled after her husband Hermann Ritter to the North Pole. They lived in this cabin for a year, together with Karl Nikolaisen, a Norwegian hunter. Once back home in Austria, she described her journey and wintering in the beautiful A Woman in the Polar Night which was originally published in 1938. After visiting the hut, Antigua sought the lee in Woodfjorden off Stjørdalspynten.

 
On 12 October, we went ashore at Stjørdalspynten during the day. In the evening and during the night, we continued sailing west to Smeerenburgbreen in Bjørnfjorden. Bjørnfjorden is an offshoot of Smeerenburgfjorden, named after the settlement of Smeerenburg, a former settlement of Dutch whalers of the Nordic Company on the island of Amsterdamøya located on the northwest side of Smeerenburgfjorden. On 13 and 14 October, we spent the day in Bjørnfjorden. The next morning, we sailed on to Kongsfjorden where we moored in Ny-Ålesund. It was special for me to return there and take a tour of the village again. The snow had all but disappeared by then.

 
On the 15th, we departed in the afternoon for Fluglehuken, the northern tip of Prins Karls Forland. The snow was now completely gone, and that part of the island was green on and around the peak because of bird droppings, an unusual sight after the trip so far. On the 16th, we stopped again in Ymerbukta again. The landscape was almost unrecognisable without the snow we had seen there on the first day, and we went ashore east of the glacier at Ramfjelldalen to see the huge ice shelf and moraines of Esmarkbreen up close. On the morning of the 17th, we sailed back to Longyearbyen.

 
Spending time in a place like Svalbard—especially after leaving the inhabited areas behind—evokes a complex mix of questions and emotions. These are not thoughts I wish to explore here in writing. The trip is still too recent, and I’m not sure that written words are the medium through which I’m best equipped to express them. For those interested in delving into such experiences in written form, I highly recommend Ritter’s book.

In the coming months, I’ll reflect on my time aboard the Antigua through drawings, that will eventually also end up here, in this blog.
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