Art in ANTARCTICA
home | about | antarctic mural | 150,000-year journey
 the markers | longitudinal installation | endangered world | ice paintings

The Markers

National Science Foundation (NSF) Antarctic Artist and Writers Program awardee Xavier Cortada marks t

he passage of time by exploring important world events that have moved the world forward during the past 50 years.

The South Pole

On December 14, 1911, Norwegian Roald Amundsen was first to 

reach the South Pole. The geographic South Pole is located near the center of the Antarctic ice sheet at an altitude of 2800 meters. The ice sheet covering the Pole is moving at about 10 m per year toward the Weddell Sea (along the 60 degree West meridian).  Each year, staff at the South Pole station reposition the South Pole marker to compensate for the movement of the ice.

On October 31, 1956, Lt. Shinn landed the first plane, "Que Sera Sera," at the South Pole.  Three weeks later, on November 20, 1956, the first South Pole station construction crew arrived.

On January 4, 1957, the Navt Seabees crew turned the completed station over to a team of nine scientists, nine support professionals (e.g.: a doctor, a cook) and a dog who wintered over and officially opened the base to scientific exploration.

 

The Installation

On January 4, 2007, on  the 50th anniversary of the opening of the South Pole station, Miami artist Xavier Cortada arrived at the South Pole and planted 51 differently-colored flags along a 500-meter stretch of a moving ice sheet. The last flag was planted where South Pole stood in 1956, when the Pole became permanently inhabited. The first, where the South Pole stands fifty years later.

Each flag is marked with its respective year, and with the coordinates of a place on Earth the artist selected as important in "moving the world forward" during that year (e.g.: 1957 is Sputnik, 1963 is the March on Washington, 1969 is the Lunar Landing, 1997 is the Kyoto Accord) while scientists worked in the South Pole. 

The Marker flags were exhibited at the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium prior to being installed in the South Pole .

About the Installation

Xavier Cortada's installation highlights events that have moved our world forward in the time it has taken the Antarctic ice sheet to move about 500 meters. Cortada chronicles the passage of time by depicting those events on flags he placed at the South Pole on January 4, 2007. To accomplish this, the artist: Created 51differently colored flags, ranging from violet to red, each sequentially representing years from 1956 to 2006.   Marked each flag with the coordinates of a place where an event took place that moved the world forward during that given year (e.g., 1963's March on Washington, 1989's Fall of the Berlin Wall).   Planted each year's flag in the location on the ice where all the meridians converged during that flag's respective year;  that is, where the South Pole stood during that given year. (Since the South Pole, 90°S, sits on a glacier that is in constant motion, its location on the ice above changes every year).   When the flags were planted they created a spectrum of color on the white surface of the ice.  The first flag was planted at the location of the 2006 Geographic South Pole, with each subsequent flag spaced 9.9 meters apart and aligned in the direction of the Weddell Sea.  Since the glacier below is moving everything in the same direction at 9.9 meters annually, the flags "mark" where the South Pole stood in any given year-- few places on Earth can so dramatically mark the passage of time. Left:  The Markers' flags on display at the Miami Museum of Science before being installed by the artist in the South Pole.

Cortada's Markers

Xavier Cortada selected the following events to mark how the world has moved forward in the past fifty years:

Please click here to read artist's blog from Antarctica