“Nature is not only what is visible to the eye – it shows the inner images of the soul – the images on the back side of the eyes.” – Edvard Munch

I have been drawn to mountain ranges and deserts across this planet, yet the arctic and sub-arctic regions of Canada are a special place for me. We are blessed with a land geographically old and wise, wizened by eons of seasons, scoured by ice ages, laid raw and bare. Like an ancient book, it tells a four billion year old story, casting a deepening shadow over the brief history of human endeavour with each turn of a page. Here the great spaces and silences, like the vast cathedrals and temples of other cultures, welcome our spirits to unloosen their bonds and to touch the infinite.

In the expanse of Ellesmere Island, time stands still, blurs, then seems to rush backwards to before humans walked the Earth. The few animals are almost oblivious to any human presence. Layers left by neolithic snowstorms are revealed in retreating glaciers ten kilometers wide, eighty kilometers long. Trees millions of years old emerge from between layers of stone. Fossils blister up among the pebbles of river beds.

On Baffin Island, rock shudders skywards and debris is littered everywhere as though recently flung from a tectonic forge. Building sized boulders tip off hanging glaciers to clap thunderously against valley walls before joining the colossal rubble below. Stone walls a kilometer and a half high overhang, casting long shadows on icecaps from ice ages past. When a blizzard descends with an unexpected fury in August, the golden glow of a tiny tent in this huge blue flux of ice and rock seems an impossible gentleness. We are humbled not only by the brazen might of the elements, but also by the delicate yet relentless hold of life, as a flower takes root in a crevice.

On the banks of the Firth River, caribou test the waters, for a perilous crossing with their young to their wintering grounds. A dozen appear, then a hundred, then a thousand, then ten thousand animals stream like a current in a seasonal tide which spans eons. As the sun skims the horizon, the sky, the land, the animals are bathed in gold, and I feel suspended somehow, like the falcon feather which blows in the wind.

These arctic places are wonderful mentors. An outward journey into this landscape becomes ultimately an act of self-discovery. It is a mirror held up to the inner soul. A meditation, the process of walking quietly, observing a great silence, is a great process of insight into life itself. This discovery has become the monumental imperative that draws me to the fringes of the world, where immense spaces and profound silence invigorate my awareness. Finding few familiar references, I feel as though I may just as easily be exploring another planet. Yet it is our home, and the tender little film of biosphere we live in is suddenly impossible to take for granted. I am repeatedly awakened to the wonder of life, and love, on this planet, in this great universe.

And yet, I come from a culture which is profoundly affecting this tender little film of biosphere. While the arctic is profound in providing insight into life, it is also startling in betraying the effects of human behaviour. We are playing a dance between our industrious nature on the one hand and the rest of nature on the other. How can we mature as a species, to be true to our industrious nature, and our relationship with life, land and water of the arctic? This is the inspiration behind my current artistic practice “Remote Sensibility”: creating a bridge of meaning between industrial culture and the north.