Lynn Davis Ice 1988 - 2007
Iceberg #29, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2000
Iceberg #31, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2000
Iceberg II, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2004
Iceberg VI, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2004
Iceberg XVIII, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2007
Iceberg #3, Disko Bay, Greenland, 1988
Iceberg #6, Disko Bay, Greenland, 1988
Iceberg #23, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2000
Iceberg I, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2004
Iceberg XXII, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2007
Artist's statement
For over twenty years I have made the long journey from New York to Greenland to photograph the giant icebergs that calve off the glacier in Ilulissat, a small town on the northwest coast that faces Disco Bay, and beyond, the Labrador Sea.
My first trip to the Arctic was in 1986. Four journeys later, in 2007, my journeys came to a melancholy end when the giant glacier had become so diminished in size that icebergs, such as I had known them, became almost impossible to find. Going, going and no doubt gone was the mystical experience of awe that I first experienced when photographing that changing alchemy of ice and water that created such monolithic forms.
In those early days I took for granted that there would always be a glacier, and that once summer arrived, the glacier, as it had for thousands of years, would naturally calve endless flotillas of icebergs to float slowly towards the Labrador Sea. What was first a mystical and life changing experience has now turned to an awareness, that nature as we have known it and taken for granted is now disappearing faster than we had ever imagined. It has been my melancholy privilege to record and celebrate such an extraordinary journey of impermanence and renewal. It is my hope and prayer that by witnessing and recording such transcendent phenomena that it is not too late to change what now seems like an irreversible fate.
About the photographer
1944, Minneapolis, United States
American
Hudson, United States
Lynn Davis has participated in solo and group shows everywhere from Tehran to Cologne and from Madrid to Minneapolis. Her works are included in many of the world’s most important collections including those of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York, Dallas Museum of Art, FNAC Photography Galleries, Paris, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, International Center of Photography, New York, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She has received several important commissions including In Response to Place: Photographs from the Nature Conservancy’s Last Great Places sponsored by the Nature Conservancy – a photographic survey of the High Plateau of Utah and Africa sponsored by Knopf Publishing. Lynn Davis’ work features regularly in books and magazine articles on photography, art and culture.
Water shortlist
Benoit Aquin, The Chinese 'Dust Bowl', 2006-2007
Edward Burtynsky, Selected works, 1996-2007
Jesus Abad Colorado, Landscapes and Battles: Two wings wait for the end of the tragedy, 1995-2002
Thomas Joshua Cooper, The World's Edge - The Atlantic Basin Project, 1998-2006
Sebastian Copeland, Antarctica - The Global Warning, 2006
Christian Cravo, Waters of Hope, Rivers of Tears, 1995-2008
Lynn Davis, Ice, 1988-2007
Carl De Keyzer, Moments before the Flood, 2006-2007
Reza Deghati, War and Peace, 1994-2006
Susan Derges, Eden & The Observer and the Observed, 1991-2008
Malcolm Hutcheson, Lahore's Waste Water Problem, 2008
Chris Jordan, In Katrina's Wake: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster, 2005
David Maisel, Terminal Mirage & The Lake Project, 2001-2004
Mary Mattingly, Second Nature and Time Has Fallen Asleep, 2004-2008
Robert Polidori, After The Flood, 2005-2006
Roman Signer, Body of Work, 1976-2000
Jules Spinatsch, Snow Management, 2004-2008
Munem Wasif, Water Tragedy: Climate Refugee of Bangladesh, 2007