© Heddi Vaughan Siebel 2010
visual artist
Lumber, Coal, Fawn Skins: An Exploration Revealed in Lists
An installation of illuminated hand-pulled prints imagines a glacier melting and revealing the artifacts of an expedition’s effort to advance a cultural and political agenda—for America to be first to the North Pole. Here the narrative of the Ziegler Polar Expedition of 1903 begins with supply lists in stunning specificity and astonishing quantities: 36 tons of Spratts dog biscuits, 10,000 lbs of tallow, 16 tons of oats and corn, 800 fawn skins. Using the newest and finest materials possible in 1903: instant coffee tablets, powdered eggs, the toughest Siberian ponies, and the strongest hickory wood sleds, the men make a military-like assault against the ice. But they never get to the Pole. Are there lessons for our times in their disappointment?
Etching, photo-etching, chine collé, and cyanotype monoprint on gampi, mulberry and kozo papers stretched on grids of wood and gut, and illuminated. Six screens approximately 6’ x 6’ each.
2010
