Artists in Antarctica

'....One day I'm going to do that too'.

Today we had the painter Margaret Elliot come to talk to us about our personal experience projects. They are all about responding creatively to our time on the ice and can take the form of a painting, a story, poems, visual diary, collage, sculpture... the list is endless. It's refreshing to know that this course is not all about science or all about pure academics and I am quite excited about the sort of writing I might come up with during and after the trip.

We have already had a couple of artists who have been on the Artists in Antarctica scheme come and speak to us. I first heard about the scheme in 2005 at the Bell Gully writing festival at Victoria University, Wellington. A highly impressionable sixth former, I can still remember sitting in that lecture theatre looking at the images and thinking 'one day I'm going to do that too'. That particular scheme was a joint project with Creative New Zealand and these days you can no longer apply, the participants are shoulder tapped. That change in structure in 2008 gave me even more reason to apply for PCAS.

One of the other women on the course is a visual artist and she decided to take this route for slightly different reasons. For me it was a way to open myself up to a whole new world. She wanted to do that too but was worried about being beholden if she took part in such a scheme, having to say nice things and produce somewhat formulaic work that was all planned in a brief before the trip. She felt that it would be limiting to go as an invited artist because to say anything untoward would be to bite the hand that feeds, whereas you have much more freedom as an academic.

The idea of being in a bind also came up in Vicki Wilkinson-Baker's talk on Antarctica in the Media. She has been to the ice twice but also talked of feeling 'beholden' because she needed to be 'babysat' by well trained staff all the time for safety and could only do what Antarctica NZ wanted her to do and had planned out. They were very helpful with preparing stories such as the discovery of NZ butter in one of the early explorers' huts because of course those are the stories that help get funding for restoring the huts. The fact that the find was actually a year old and being kept secret until media could take part in the 'uncovering' didn't worry her too much because it was for a good cause, but the fact that it was practically impossible to ask probing questions about things that the officials did not want to discuss is still a niggle. It is very hard to investigate things down there because no one wants to make trouble or upset other bases and it's not like you can camp out in your own media van, being completely independent. Vicki did raise the prospect of one day having devoted 'Antarctic Correspondents' though, which would certainly be an exciting day!

For now, I'm just trying to suss out whether my famous crayola washable markers that accompany me everywhere are likely to survive in the deep southern freezer. I'll be sure to report back the results.