Deception
This series explores the remote and desolate place, Deception Island, an island and active caldera that forms part of the South Shetland archipelago near the Antarctic Peninsula. This work investigates a place rich with history and filled with the ghosts of a violent past. Deception Island was a key location during the fur seal and whaling industry, during which time fur seals were brutally hunted to near extinction and the populations of various whale species found in the Southern Ocean were severely depleted.
Many men died on the Island due to the inhospitable environment and the dangerous tasks of their profession. During the mid-twentieth century when the fur seal and whaling industry collapsed Deception Island became a site for research and housed small scientific communities until two volcanic eruptions closed the scientific station in the late 1960s.
Through this series we investigate the otherworldly beauty of this monochrome landscape and examine the vulnerability and fallibility of human pursuits and the resilience of nature. Illustrating the remnants of life in this landscape and a human presence that seems to have failed on all fronts.