A Polar Newbie
Polar research. Where to begin?
For an excited newbie like me, it’s like jumping into a puddle only to find yourself in desperate need of a life vest. The sheer volume of information available on the polar regions is immense and with so much of it freely available online, hyperlinks jolting you instantaneously from one fascinating fact or storyline to another, it is very easy to become overwhelmed. Thoughts muddled and bounced around my head in brownian fashion and I needed to still them, to solidify the mess while I sorted it into something more constructive. Where better to begin this process than at The Polar Museum in Cambridge.
The Museum forms part of The Scott Polar Research Institute and houses a permanent exhibition charting polar history, life, science and exploration as well as a temporary exhibition space, which is currently showing, “By Endurance We Conquer: Shackleton and his Men” - a major centenary exhibition commemorating Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17.
The whole museum is filled with wonderful artefacts and archival material, but this exhibit along with the section of the museum dedicated to Scott’s Terra Nova expedition are particularly special and profoundly moving. To witness firsthand the very chronometer with which Frank Worsley famously navigated 800 miles of Southern Ocean to secure the rescue of the crew of the Endurance is incredible. Or to stand in front of paintings by expedition artist, George Marston who’s oil paints ended up being commandeered to help waterproof joints in the ship’s lifeboats. Most poignant of all however, are the hand-written letters and diaries. By their very nature they are intimate and their words and timbre resonate, but it felt to me also that with each curve and crossed line of ink or pencil, the characters became symbols too - that they were precious simply as marks made on paper, much as an opera can still be meaningful and moving to someone who does not understand the language it is sung in.
It was perhaps too much to expect my children to absorb the gravity of what Scott, Shackleton and their brave colleagues accomplished and endured, but as I watched the concentration on my daughter’s face as she manoeuvred her way thoughtfully around the museum, scribbling down answers to the kid’s trail questionnaire or the enthusiasm with which my son climbed into giant polar boots and pulled on goggles from a dressing-up box, I felt sure some emotional seed had at least been planted. The SPRI is a world-leading research and information centre, a centre of excellence in polar studies, but what is also clear is that through it’s Museum and outreach programmes it is also a wonderful catalyst, sparking the imagination of a new generation and a wonderful aid to members of the public like myself, simply curious to find out more.
I applied for the artist’s residency thinking I would be working primarily from a scientific perspective - layering landscapes borne of satellite imagery, looking at the movement of sea ice or underlying topography and suchlike, but I’ve been utterly seduced by the ‘heroic age’ and by the bravery of these incredible explorers. Knowing it was science that drove many of them to it in the first place is crucially important. ‘Science’ after all, wrote Scott in his journal on the 9th May 1911, is ‘the rock foundation of all effort!’
