Greenland’s Big Ice is melting. How do we melt the ice in the human heart? Art will save the day. Photography by Emile Holba.
Illustrations by Brian Goggin.
Audio by Charles Monroe-Kane. Website design by Emile Holba.
All rights reserved by Sermersuaq: The Last Ice Project.
No reproduction without prior permission.
Greenlandic Inuit believe glacial blue ice is animate. Artist Brian Goggin aims to extract a piece of ancient ice — with its ancient voice — and sculpt it into a frozen ambassador who will speak a powerful message for the planet.
The project will be realized by a stellar team of passionate Western and Inuit eco-provocateurs. Powered by humans, technology, dogs, sleds, ships, photography, film, podcast and music, the ice gem will reach millions as it travels the globe in an immersive, multisensory, existential experience.
Sermersuaq (sur-mur-sook). Celebrated American artist Brian Goggin is on an odyssey to forge the powers of art, nature and ancient wisdom to heat up the conversation about climate change. With Indigenous and Arctic guides, he will extract a block of Big Ice on the island of Kalallit Nunnat (Greenland), and sculpt it into a reverentially sacred art piece. This frozen ambassador will explore the world protected in a state-of-the-art reliquary vessel—a technological achievement designed to preserve and display a living symbol of planetary fragility.
The rapid demise of Arctic ice ecosystems, and profound impacts on the planet, will be experienced via an exhibition that will include a film directed by Emmy award-winner Jon Halperin, photography by award-winning British Arctic photographer Emile Holba, a podcast by Peabody award-winning public radio producer Charles Monroe-Kane, and original music composed by the internationally renowned Norwegian Pioneer of Ice Music, Terje Isungset.
Sermersauq: The Last Ice Project challenges the way we view artistic endeavors and how we discuss climate change. Art. Ice. Voice. This alchemy will inspire new generations, new stories and new actions that will transform the environmental trajectory we’re on.
Here’s a short interview with Brian and public radio's Charles Monroe-Kane about the importance of the project.
Lead Artist: Brian Goggin out on Ilulissat Kangerlua (Ilulissat Iceford).
Artist Bio
Brian Goggin is an American sculptor and installation artist with a studio in the Mission District of San Francisco. He is a prolific creator of unique art, usually sculptural and public. Defenestration was a beloved outdoor installation on the side of the Hugo Hotel in San Francisco for 17 years (1996-2013), part of a series of installations of seemingly animated furniture installed on the sides of urban buildings in the city.
Goggin’s art openings often include large-scale performance-art happenings. He is a member of the Cacophony Society, where ‘gorilla art’ is their visionary expression, and whose early members became the primary organizers of the Burning Man event see Gatekeeper of Your Impossible Dreams KQED Arts - Goggin studied filmmaking and painting at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Art and English Literature at Homerton College, Cambridge.