Antarctica is inspirational
and not just to scientists!
Here’s a selection of some of our favourite things to listen to, read and watch, all on an Antarctic theme.
We hope you enjoy them!
Music, words & images
Marvellous photography from independent film maker and nature photographer, Richard Sidey.
Magical sounds of a double-bass enchant whales
Brooklyn-based composer Garth Stevenson, carried his 150-year-old double-bass to Antarctica for inspiration and found himself performing for an unusual audience.
BBC World Service radio programme: a selection of music, interviews, and messages to the British Antarctic Survey team overwintering in Antarctica.
In this remarkable modern orchestral music Belgian composer, Eric Bettens, shares the emotions and experiences of his journey to the Antarctic.
This clip takes us to the Artic rather than the Antarctic, but this short piece of music wonderfully evokes the threatened beauty of Earth’s polar regions.
Haunting sounds of ice, comets and space phenomena recorded in Antarctica and on spacecraft – truly otherworldly! The work of Dr Nigel Meredith of the British Antarctic Survey and artist-engineer Diana Scarborough.
L’Astrolabe, le passeur de l’Antarctique
A book that tells the stories of the famous French ice-breaker, ‘L’Astrolabe’ – its 30 years of voyages to Antarctica, the people who travelled there and adventures they experienced. In French by Daphné Buiron and Stephane Dugast.
Antarctic Biennale: musiques, mots et fantasie
“Une utopie est devenue réalité : nous venons de vivre la première Antartic Biennale !» La déclaration est de l’artiste, poète, ingénieur et marin russe Alexandre Ponomarev, qui a embarqué avec lui 80 artistes, scientifiques, philosophes et écrivains à la mi-mars [en 2017] et pendant douze jours sur le navire d’expédition scientifique Akademik-Sergey-Vavilov pour explorer le pôle Sud au-delà du cercle antarctique.” Lire le journal de bord de Jeanette Zwingenberger, historienne et critique d’art, qui raconte cet évenement hors commun. Voir aussi des photos extraordinaires sur le blog d’Eugene Kaspersky (in English).
Artist Helen Glazer spent seven weeks in Antarctica in 2015 sponsored by the US National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. She took stunning photographs of ice and geological formations, some of which have been turned into sculptures.
Liza Ryan’s Antarctic photo-based works are inspired by the continent’s other-worldly landscape. Her remarkable images were exhibited at the Kayne Griffin Corcoran gallery in 2018. You can read about her experiences in Antarctica shaped the work in this article from the Financial Times.
Documentaries & videos of the natural world
A whale’s eye-view of Antarctica
Remarkable images captured via a camera attached to a whale. Video from WWF.
Videos filmed by scientists from the Institut Polaire français Paul-Emile Victor.
Goélette Vaïhéré: sailing in Antarctic waters
An evocative clip of life on this 24 m schooner (sailing boat) as she ventures to the Southern Ocean, and the landscape and wildlife encountered there.
Extraordinary timelapse film of swarming giant worms and sea stars
From the acclaimed BBC series Life, eerily beautiful images of metre-long nemertean worms and carnivorous sea stars that prowl the Antarctic seas in search of flesh.
Exploring Antarctic Deepsea Life
Dr Dave Bowden, a benthic ecologist at NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research), New Zealand, explains how marine biologists are beginning to unveil the mysteries of this deep ocean (over 3000 m), particularly the relatively unknown sector between New Zealand and the Ross Sea. The film shows never before seen creatures that live on the deep sea bed.
Blue Planet II (for those in the UK only)
Antarctica features frequently in the BBC’s magnificent series on the planet’s oceans and the amazing life they sustain, including unique footage of the deep ocean floor off the Antarctic coast.
Under the Antarctic Ice Beauty of The Nature
Documentary about scientists and photographers studying and filming the marine wildlife and undersea environments off Antarctica
Precious ozone – the size of it
Short video describing the ozone layer and its role in protecting our planet. The ‘hole’ in the ozone layer was first discovered by scientists in Antarctica. Made for the UN Environment Ozone Secretariat, the Secretariat for the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
