Ice Fields

In 2004, as part of my documentary projects on nature and climate change, I made multiple trips flying over the glaciers of the Perito Moreno region and the region of the high peaks in Santa Cruz where the Upsala Glacier is located. The plane that took me through those diaphanous landscapes was piloted by an ex-combatant from the Malvinas whose story I still remember about the land of the Roaring Forties that shaped the rugged geography of those islands.

To see glaciers from above is to be present before immense ice fields. Monochrome landscapes of perennial accumulation of crystalline ice, snow, rocks and sediments.

I remembered that in most of the cosmologies of the indigenous peoples of the South, nature is alive, populated by entities and beings that unite with each other and reveal myths of origin, and processes of cultural transmission. For them, water allows them to connect with ancestors and ancient rituals; heal physical and spiritual pain.

Water has memory, and ice is a frozen instant where realities intersect and overlap, which therefore have enormous relevance in the universe of meanings. Water works as a data line or even as a communication conduit for molecular structures, and it is there when we realize that everything alive, everything natural, is an immensity archive.

During the month of October 2021 and still in the pandemic, I received an invitation from Mrs. Elena Mikusinski, Ambassador of the Argentine Republic in Ukraine, where she invited a group of artists who, curated by María Teresa Constantin, would exhibit a new series of photographs on the occasion of the recognition of Argentina towards the independence of Ukraine  in 1991.

We carried out the production of the works in my studio in San Telmo in Buenos Aires, the photographs related to the landscape and the environmental crisis were sent to Kiev where they were exhibited on the walls of the Embassy. From where I stood in Buenos Aires, I did not imagine that the project would later be traversed by a war.

Sometimes I close my eyes and see, happening in slow motion, my photographs fluttering through the offices of the Embassy in Kiev, in the midst of rubble, mist and gunpowder dancing to the rhythm of exploding glass and smoke bombs. I can see how my ice fields are dissolving layer by layer like wallpaper in an uninhabited, forgotten house… and I stop to think about the uselessness of war. In how a few intend to write the history of this planet with power strategies and direct all the movements as a music score.

One day in March 2022 and in the midst of constant news about the unleashed war conflict, I took a seat in my autumn garden and remembered the many vicissitudes that I have had to navigate and that through my art I have managed to reconcile with the world, this our imponderable and unpredictable world.

This is how the second part of the Ice Fields series was born, a work that continues to speak, although from the destruction, of the landscape and climate preservation and the remission of glaciers around the world.

Laeticia Mello: What motivated you to continue researching the Ice Fields  project?

Matilde Marín: The effects of the war in Ukraine have echoed around the world, the conflict has spread not only in Europe but in many other countries. Until these tragedies occur it is hard for us to see how linked economies are and how we are all tied together by invisible threads. Gas prices soar, currencies fluctuate, the cost of bread in the Middle East changes, routes are closed and new ones open…and all this is happening while more than two million refugees are making their way. As an Artist, I feel a responsibility to follow what is happening, to document it.

LM: What did the photographs that you exhibited in Kyiv at the Embassy in Ukraine spoke about?

MM: The series is called Ice Fields. It is a suite of photographic works that talk about the landscape and climate preservation and the remission of glaciers around the world. The series arose from a trip I made in 2004 flying over the glaciers of the Perito Moreno region and the region of the high peaks in Santa Cruz where the Upsala Glacier is located. The trip was part of my documentary projects on nature and climate change. The idea of “placing” ice from the South in the North through this exhibition was to create a bridge and awareness about what is happening with climate change, especially in this post-pandemic universe; talk about the memory that water has regardless of the coordinates and the implications of humans against the use and abuse of our natural resources. The works ended up being a communication bridge as well, in a region that is suffering from a major breakdown.

 LM: How do you think war is affecting climate change?

MM: As war rages on and we are faced with the urgency of survival, thousands and thousands of miles to the North, deep in the Arctic, vital research on carbon emissions has had to be postponed, and without development and breakthroughs, global warming is revealed to us closer and closer.

LM: What can an artist do in the face of these realities?

MM: The Artist is a witness of his time, and is also a mediator. There is a lot of information that is difficult to communicate to the general public. Understanding the politics and the framework of decisions and conflicts that we are going through is sometimes very complex and that is when artists can communicate through their works in languages that arouse empathy, connection or inspiration. Artists have the power to transform the day to day with gestures, even minimal ones that generate big changes.

I recently reread a sentence from a Native American Chief. “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” It is curious that since the time of Chief Seattle in the 19th century, it has taken so many years for us to begin to take responsibility for our environment. Today, in 2022, the biggest battle is with the production of sustainable resources, biomethane gas, energy from waste, capitalizing on the potential of our forests, producing renewable energy and gas on a regional scale, and above all, being able to preserve it. It is important that as artists we get involved in this fight to help communicate through our art the urgency to preserve our resources and continue developing green technologies.

LM: In your previous trips you travelled to Iceland and Finland where there are also ice fields, how do you think these territories have changed?

MM: I documented the Hraunhafnartangi lighthouse in the northernmost part of Iceland for my Pharus Project (Work in progress) series and the Finland lighthouse for my Ocean Sea video (2018). The conflict in Ukraine has had a direct impact on the Baltic and Northern countries. Iceland and Finland in particular have always amazed me, they are cultures very different from those of the south, but originally they were connected through water with their ancestors, just like the cosmology of our native peoples, with a connection with the land and spiritual peace that has inspired me in my works.

What I observe is that the focus at this moment is to take care of the sovereignty and security of territories and borders. I imagine that there is a change of paradigm and direction to seek a light and solution to the war. It is curious that humans since ancient times have always resorted to light, to guide our destinies.