LES PÔLES SOUS L’OEIL DES PHOTOGRAPHES
Ambassade du Tourisme, rue Sibilli

With Dr Lisa Anderson and Claire Chevrier from Editions Paulsen

Lisa Anderson – Arctic Midnight This exhibition of photographs were created by Dr Lisa Anderson during her time on expedition through the Northwest Passage on the Russian Icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov. This was  a rare opportunity to create imagery that responds to the extraordinary conditions of the melting ice shelf of the High Arctic. The beauty of the journey is touched on in these diary-like images of the particular effects of light in the ice forms floating across seas  and island strewn along the Nunavut Territories and the Chukotka. The fragility of the environment pictured here tells us much about the otherness of the landscape and references our own place within this global network of events we know as climate changes. Lisa has recently exhibited her videos and sculptural digital installations  ATTLA (snow that makes beautiful pictures as it falls) in Sydney at Customs House. “Paris Angels” at Rex-Livingston Gallery Sydney was an exhibition of paintings and photographs made while she was in residence at the Cite Internationale des Ats, Paris. www.lisanderson.com.au www.shinyshinyworld.com www.rex-livingston.com

Douglas Mawson/Frank Hurley/Tim Jarvis Antarctica, a frozen hell, as fascinating as it is terrifying, in an unreal landscape, where snowdrifts, sastrugi, crevasses and icefloats are swept by a wind so terrible it flattens men on the ground : the blizzard. In January 1912, when Douglas Mawson (1882-1958) sets foot on the Adelie Land, heading an Australasian Antarctica Expedition, he and his companions are determined to map over three thousand kilometers of coastline. But as soon as they have finished building their cabin, they discover that they have chosen the most windy spot on the planet. Upon his return, Douglas Mawson tells the story of this expedition in a fascinating book, “The Home of The Blizzard”. This tale inspired a modern day Australian explorer, Tim Jarvis. Fascinated by Mawson’s legend, he decided to embark on the same expedition, with the same equipment. This expedition was documented with passion in Malcolm McDonald’s book : “Mawson : Life and Death in Antarctica”. Frank Hurley, an Australian photographer and director (1885–1962), was part of the group led by Douglas Mawson in Antarctica where, because of his sensitive and precise vision, he became the official photographer of the expedition, capturing on film a hostile as well as beautiful land. With many pictures, the photographer documented the daily life of his companions in the Land of the Blizzard. The beauty of his images are even more striking when we consider the extreme conditions of his work: frozen plates, stuck cameras, frozen fingers and spectacular falls.

Litterature, photography and cinema will come together in the 11th edition of the Festival des Antipodes, around the eternal fascination of Antarctica.