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A remarkable installation by leading photographer Anne Noble explores how the medium of photography shapes out impressions of Antarctica.

The works in Southern Lights disrupt our perceptions of Antarctica, examining how we come to know and understand a place through visual images. The exhibition presents Noble's photographs of maps as an installation of light-boxes – beautiful glowing surfaces that reveal the complexity of information contained in the images, challenging our understanding of Antarctica and our relationship to it.

Expanding on the idea that photography is complicit in the evolution of an Antarctic economy, Noble has taken the images of maps and created a series of commercially packaged and branded Antarctic products.

The Southern Lights Antarctic art collectibles include cookie cutters and jigsaw puzzles, exhibited at Jonathan Smart Gallery in an extension of Southern Lights. In using these ironic forms, Noble engages her audience in both constructing and consuming the image of Antarctica. A rack of postcards showing a series of 'tourist' images of Antarctica are presented as trophies recording and confirming our experience of visiting certain locations. Some of these items are available to purchase at the Gallery Shop.

Noble has successfully brought together a range of mediums in Southern Lights that examines how Antarctica is portrayed and displayed throughout the world, as well as the expansion of Antarctica as a commercial product – a product that has seen substantial growth and development in recent years.

Peter Vangioni
Peter Vangioni is Curator (Works on Paper) at the Gallery.

A complete version of this article can be found in Bulletin 143 available from the Gallery Shop.

Exhibition number 748