Ultima Thule

Vaughan, S (2008) Ultima Thule. Impressions Gallery, Bradford, UK, 13 February - 13 April 2008.

Item Type: Exhibition
Creators: Vaughan, S
Abstract: Ultima Thule is the first in a series of photographic works made at the edges of the Earth’s tectonic plates. This on-going research uses photography to investigate geological phenomena and associated cultural histories of the land, in locations where the Earth’s surface is regenerating, subducting or transforming. The resulting photographs combine the descriptive scrutiny of geological processes such as volcanic and seismic activity within the context of a human-cultural understanding of place and history.
Official URL: https://www.impressions-gallery.com/event/stephen-...
Date: 2008
Event Location: Impressions Gallery, Bradford, UK
Additional Locations: Arts University College, Bournemouth, UK, The Dick Institute, Kilmarnock, UK, Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, UK, Photofusion, London, UK, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, USA
Note:

Ultima Thule was first presented in a major solo exhibition at Impressions Gallery, Bradford, in 2008. The exhibition has subsequently toured to a number of national and international venues and has been viewed by an audience of c.20,000. A number of events and public lectures accompanied the exhibition at each venue. This included a collaborative presentation with the National Media Museum that examined the relationship between historical photographs from the NMM archive and the Ultima Thule exhibition.

Ultima Thule is the result of an on-going, inter-disciplinary research enquiry that involves the processing of historical, scientific and cultural knowledge through a creative photographic art practice that is informed by other histories of landscape representation (in the visual arts, literature, cartography etc). The series was made in Iceland, at the boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates – a divergent boundary that features a continuous, and occasionally explosive, process of volcanic activity and the creation of some of the newest surfaces on Earth. The series uses photography to describe the geological processes of this region, within the context of human histories of exploration.
The production of the photographic works involved a number of solo photographic expeditions in Iceland. It was also informed by an inter-disciplinary expedition with an international group of volcanologists and earth scientists from IAVCEI (International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior) to the Grimsvotn volcano (in the Vatnajokull Glacier) in 2008, to observe ice-volcano interaction.

Subjects: T Technology > TR Photography
Divisions: Bath School of Art, Film and Media
Date Deposited: 17 Sep 2013 09:47
Last Modified: 31 Aug 2023 14:58
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