Oona Stern

An interactive multimedia video installation depicting the environment at the terminal face of the Monacobreen and Seligsbreen glaciers, in Liefdefjorden, Svalbard.

Iceline offers a portal into the sonic and visual details of a chaotic and beautiful at-risk environment. It shows the Arctic ocean aswarm with icebergs, bergy bits, and other ice debris. The ice makes its way from the crumbling terminal face of a tidewater glacier out to the open ocean to melt. From one perspective, the journey reflects the natural cycles of water on our planet. More imperatively, in portraying the process of glacier retreat, Iceline highlights effects of climate change, melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and increasing occurrences of severe weather. The audience is invited to coordinate in an effort to slow this effect of climate change.

Iceline reveals events once distant and future, but now less so, and critically addresses the relationship of people to natural phenomena in remote regions.

Iceline

2 minute sample. Work in progress, 2019.
Audio by Cheryl E Leonard. Video by Oona Stern.

Video footage was shot from the water in Liefdefjorden, Svalbard. The audio is crafted from field recordings of floating Arctic ice combined with sounds produced on stone slabs and other natural material from the region.

Svalbard drawings

In 2011 I travelled to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, conducting research for Adfreeze Project, a collaboration with the composer and sound artist Cheryl Leonard. For two weeks we sailed on the barquentine Antigua as part of The Arctic Circle residency. The boat sailed the west coast of Spitzbergen island, anchoring offshore to allow daily excursions. During these brief forays I made rubbings of rocks, ice, ropes, and shipwrecks, which have evolved into an ongoing series of drawings.

Ice Notes

A travelogue from Svalbard, in the Arctic.

At Length Magazine
atlengthmag.com/art/ice-notes 

This collection of writing, photography, sound, and drawing offers a glimpse of the remote Arctic, as well as a window into the working process and work-in-progress of Adfreeze Project, an ongoing collaboration between composer Cheryl Leonard and visual artist Oona Stern.

Monacobreen 

2:00 sample.
Continuous loop video, audio, rocks, paint; 12' x 14' x 14'. 2011
Audio by Cheryl E Leonard. Video by Oona Stern.

Audio and video field recordings from Liefdefjorden. Installed at Insomnia Future Music and Techno Festival, Kurant Gallery, Tromsø, Norway.