In late September last year, I went alone to Long-yearbyen, Norway – the Arctic adventure base – to participate in the 11th edition of The Arctic Circle Residency Program. After meeting 28 artists selected from around the world, we boarded a ship and began the two-week exploration of the high-Arctic Svalbard Archipelago, less than 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole.
The Program is led by The Farm, a non-profit organization based in New York, with the aim of promoting the integration of art and science. I was the only Asian artist in the program. In addition to collecting materials and engaging in environmental writing, I also introduced other participants to Macau’s increasingly serious natural disasters, pollution caused by land reclamation, and other environmental issues.
Floating on the sea at all times was the biggest challenge of the journey. We had to eat, drink, and sleep on the ship, and the closer to the North Pole we went, the more violently the ship shook. Every day was arranged in perfect order as if on a march: breakfast at 8am, then the scheduled meeting to learn the various needs of artists (e.g. scenes of snowfields, rock beaches or historical relics for photography, sketches, installations or performance art). After that, the crew went ashore for reconnaissance, and then the artists put on life jackets and purpose-made snow boots and boarded military rubber boats.
The Svalbard Archipelago is the kingdom of polar bears, with more bears than people. We met a total of six polar bears during the trip. The most dangerous encounter occurred while I was recording by the river with a Finnish playwright and admiring a poisonous jellyfish in the wa- ter, when suddenly three polar bears appeared across the river like phantoms, just ten meters away from us. I also saw Arctic foxes, reindeer, beluga whales, walruses, and even explorers’ tombs and former Soviet ghost towns.
We climbed mountains, waded into riverbeds, walked on beaches with knee-deep kelp and explored age-old glaciers all the way inland. The road was bumpy, and I got bruises all over my knees, but the magnificent views were well worth it. Whenever we saw garbage (mostly fishnets, plastics, ropes, etc.), we would immedi- ately take them away so that wild animals would not accidentally swallow them or get entangled. In the evening, we would usually sort the materials, exchange ideas, and learn basic maritime knowledge. The crew would explain the eco- logical environment of the Arctic and tell stories of the explorers. Those days were extremely fulfilling.
The Arctic was warmer than I had expected (-10 – 2 °C), but the weather was rather unpredictable. Sunshine, heavy rain, rainbows and blizzards could appear all in the same afternoon. The Aurora, a full moon, and the Milky Way occasionally showed up simultaneously. In the Arctic, I saw the most stunning sunsets in the world.
Besides the visual and tactile impacts, two kinds of sounds were especially unforgettable in the Arctic: the deafening sound of glaciers collapsing, and the melting noise of floating ice. The former could be heard dozens of times in an ordinary afternoon, as if the purest temple suddenly crumbled before your eyes, with the echo of death reverberating in the vast space; the latter was a rustling sound, like smashing stars into pieces and throwing them into a frying pan in Hell.
Environmental protection is more than just talking. Environmental writer Wu Ming-yi proposes that “natural experience focus- es on ‘wildness’, not just ‘wilderness’”, and emphasizes the impor- tance of the author’s “involvement” in the field and the necessity of “non-fictional” experiences. After I returned to Macau, in addition to working on my next creative project, I was also invited to lecture on eco-poetry writing at the Hong Kong Baptist University, in an effort to raise people’s awareness of environmental issues.
Macau and the Arctic are not as distant as one might think. Living on the same planet, every life depends on each other. Reports of wildfires and stranded dolphins are so common that people become callous and think they can take everything they want from the Earth – until it takes revenge on endless human exploita- tion. Our civilization is not superior to nature, and what literature and art do is never work behind closed doors, oblivious to the outside world. It is taking action and blowing the horn, in search of a way to change and coexist.
Wet Fresco
Draw a small picture every day Snowy wet fresco
Release every day
Several fjords
Crossing a boundary of transparency
There is no barrier between me and the pole The ocean is waving countless small hands Make it simple
Where there are people
There is no peace
When they see the land
They see exploration and occupation
Each other
All of them destroyers A lifetime blast
Is my Prozac
A Night with a hundred ghosts Aperture adjusted to manual mode Capturing a smile of the aurora Dying
Tomorrow, if there is no change for tomorrow
I will see the wet fresco painted by Him millennia ago Let’s drink up tonight
Wine bottles full of lies and ice
He said there was light
We dig the wall and steal the light He said there was rain and fire It’s time to go stock up in malls
Sword and goodness
All fall in the middle
Fortunately a mark was engraved on the boat
Tomorrow’s clay is dry
Tomorrow we will be in time for the exhibition opening Tomorrow melting glacier will be broadcast in real time
Tomorrow, tomorrow’s world will continue to be brutal
For the sake of the environment He said no to flowers in baskets
At the first blossom of the sun, we put away the motor and sail Moor the ark in the low Himalayas
By Un Sio San
