HVERFA - SÍM GALLERY, REYKJAVÍK 30.5.17 - 2.6.17
SEVENTH GALLERY, MELBOURNE 15.2.18 - 2.3.18
Engaging various modes of representation, Hverfa seeks to document Iceland’s Solheimajökull glacier – a site on the brink of complete disappearance. Monumental, yet deeply seductive forms are represented in a manner that blurs boundaries between naturalism and abstraction, detailing the singularity, transience and fragility of the natural world
on HVERFA by CHELSEA HOPPER
You are bigger than I ever imagined.
I can’t even see you all in one go.
When I look at you, I have to turn my head very slowly to take you all in. And as my eyes roll up to meet the very top of you, my ears move closer to my shoulders and my head on its own accord starts tilting up and up and up.
In front,
below,
to the side,
and above.
Looking at you takes time.
A deep breath and a bitten lip. The air is thin and the wind is unkind. As I exhale, you get fuzzy. But this is only for a moment as I clear my vision and wipe the fallen ice stuck to my eyelids with my big black puffy gloves. I try and recognize all of your distracting lines that bend and turn into other parts of you. They go on and on and disappear and I lose track of where they start and where they end.
You’ve changed a lot, you see. Has anyone you ever told you that? I too have changed (we all have) but nowhere near much as you. You’ve got these cracks that look a lot bigger than before that now seem to travel deep inside of you. They remind me of this ceiling crack in my childhood bedroom at the end of the hallway in my old family home that only ended in with a disappointing spider web. Yet your cracks, lead to hundreds of hidden channels and tunnels that no one will ever see.
You’re smaller now too even though you’re so big. So, big. I have these photographs of you when you were younger. So very bright; a white beaming light as radiant as the sun you barely see. Except now the bottom of you unfurls and you’re even changing colour too.
I can also tell you’ve been crying.
You’ve started falling over.
You must know that you’re not the one who has altered the human physics and chemistry of the world and I am sorry that you are changing so quickly. Parts of you have broken off, wriggled away and broken loose and you will never get them back.
But you will never know all of this as our relationship unspoken.
There will be a time where I will get old and I can no longer travel to see you. My climbing knees won’t work as well as they used to and I won’t be able to take me far. Not even up a hill. You won’t remember me and I will stop taking your picture. I will seek out other places to look at and later realise they aren’t as half as good as you. The seasons will change and in the heart of winter all the snow will fall on you in a heap. The climate will make you thaw, morph, and collapse. All of you. And it will happen slowly and I will show the world what you look like with what I know to have seen. Over and over as I now represent you as an image.
Like spitting into a river to make sure it doesn’t dry up.
To keep it flowing.