Arctic Poetry Reading, Live Dance Performance & Meet the Artists

This special event at Amos Eno Gallery presents a live performance, Arctic poetry reading, and an opportunity to meet some of the artists in From the Cold Edge: Creative Meditations on Svalbard & The Arctic Circle Residency.

This event is part of the exhibition From the Cold Edge: Creative Meditations on Svalbard and The Arctic Circle Residency, a group show curated by Candace Jensen, Jacinda Russell, and Hester Blum, on view from October 11 to November 3, 2024.

About the performances:

Felt Essence of

A performance choreographed and danced by Alexandra Lockhart

A live dance performance, embodying the felt unseen. This work explores and examines how the body remembers the essence of a place, while paying ode to the animism of this Arctic environment. Choreographed from improvisations throughout Svalbard, initiated by extreme sensations and the overwhelm of the Arctic nuance and grandeur. Transcended into an alternate realm, outside my concept of space, time and relationship, this place left me silenced by lessons of patience, fragility, devastation, and deep power. I fell in love.

Arctic Poetry Reading

Featuring poems written during and about The Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard, by poets Candace Jensen and Hannah Larrabee, as well as an original translation of Ilya Ehrenburg's poetry by Sergei Chernikov.

About the performers:

Hannah Larrabee's Wonder Tissue won the Airlie Press Poetry Prize and her new book—The Observable Universe—was longlisted for a Massachusetts Book Award. Hannah was selected by NASA to write poetry for the Webb Telescope program at Goddard Space Center and she participated in the Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard. She has poems and book reviews in Whale Road, River Heron, EcoTheo, Adirondack Review, Glass Poetry, Molecule, among others. Hannah has an MFA from the University of New Hampshire where she studied with Charles Simic. She is an editor at Nixes Mate Review and lives in Salem, Massachusetts. hannahlarrabee.com

Alexandra Lockhart, originally from Colorado, is a professional dancer, choreographer, teacher and filmmaker. She earned her BFA from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance in New York, during which she also spent a semester training at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth, Australia. Alexandra has attended and performed at festivals throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, and Israel. With focus on her organization, Move To Protect, Alexandra creates environmental dance films and performances. She was an artist-in-residence at Green Box Arts in 2021, and joined the Arctic Circle Artist and Scientist Residency in 2022. Most recently, she has been awarded a six month artist-in-residence position at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at CU Boulder.

https://www.movetoprotect.com/ • https://aelockhart.com/

Sergei Chernikov has lived on Svalbard since December 2015. Starting as a field guide, he developed into a tourism operations manager. His passion for algorithms and operations brought Sergei to the logistics company where he works now. Sergei organizes events to raise money for Ukraine on Svalbard and participates in local democratic initiatives.

Candace Jensen is an multidisciplinary visual artist, writer, calligrapher, curator and organizer. Her work is grounded in animism, deep ecology, and building creative community. Jensen is cofounder and Creative Director of In Situ Polyculture Commons, an arts residency and regenerative culture catalyst. She also serves as Letterpress Director at Ruth Stone House in Goshen, VT and Art Editor for their poetry & art quarterly, Iterant Magazine.

Represented by Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn, NY since 2018, Jensen has exhibited in San Francisco, Oakland, Antwerp, New York City, Southern Vermont and Hillsborough, NC. Reviews of her artwork and interviews with the artist have appeared in the Adroit Journal, Ante Mag and Studio Visit Magazine. Her art and writing have been published by the Dark Mountain Project, Index Press Quarterly, Eratio Postmodern, Iterant Mag, the Earthkeepers' Handbook (ecoartspace), and a forthcoming publication by the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, Disobedient Futures. She lives and works on the unceded lands of the Elnu Abenaki in Southern Vermont, Turtle Island. www.candacejensen.com / www.insitupolyculture.org / iterant.org

About the Exhibition:

From the Cold Edge is an international curatorial project that features 23 artists, writers, and their collaborators from over 6 countries, representing a diverse reflection on their shared experience in Svalbard during The Arctic Circle Residency in October 2022. The exhibition includes manifold responses to the unique ecosystem and cultural significance of the Svalbard archipelago; the complex realities of survival, residency & tourism there; and the mythic significance of the Polar North in its symbolism and beauty. The work grapples with questions about belonging, climate change, temporality, human impact on the land, and the privilege of stepping foot in such a remarkable place.
Media in From the Cold Edge spans lyrical writing and poetry, data-collection and aggregation, sound recording, performance, and work from a broad spectrum of visual media such as painting, multi-channel video, photography and sculpture. Due to challenges of scale, temperature, and adapting practices to being nearly off-grid for 2 weeks aboard the tallship Antigua, much of this work was completed and refined in the 2 years since the Arctic voyage. The show does, however, include artifacts of the creative process as it happened at 80º North, including paintings, glacial rubbings, film photography, and a few lithic mementos, to name a few.
Notably, this exhibition also presents a partial preview of the curatorial selection made for a special issue of the peer-reviewed environmental humanities journal titled "On the Cold Edge" (forthcoming 2025). Preparation for the special issue served as inspiration for the curatorial team to organize From the Cold Edge at Amos Eno Gallery.

Special events schedule:
— Opening Reception: Friday, October 11th, 2024, 5-9 p.m.
— Live Performance, Poetry Reading & Meet the Artists: Saturday, Oct. 12th, 2-4 p.m.
— Closing Reception: Sunday, November 3rd, 4-6 p.m.
List of artists and writers to be included in the exhibition:

• Joan Albaugh
• Leonor Anthony
• Ashlin Aronin (in collaboration with Morgan Rosskopf)
• Hester Blum
• Sergei Chernikov
• Dianne Chisholm
• Harley Cowan
• Jessica Creane
• Sarah Gerats
• Laurie Glover
• Brian House
• Candace Jensen
• Hannah Larrabee
• Greg Lecker
• Andrea Legge
• Felicia LeRoy
• Jia-Jen Lin
• Alexandra Lockhart
• Zoriça Kelly Markovich
• Alejandro Marra Mejía
• Terhi Nieminen
• Jacinda Russell
• Paula Sćiuk

​​Amos Eno Gallery and the curators would like to thank the Penn State Department of English, College of the Liberal Arts, and Climate Consortium for their generous support to cover costs associated with mounting the exhibition "From the Cold Edge," as well as The Arctic Circle Residency for additional support. Gratitude also to NYSCA for their grant contribution to Amos Eno Gallery programming and honorarium costs, including for "From the Cold Edge" live performance and readings.

Host or Publisher Amos Eno Gallery