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“Antarctica Calling: Showa Station Now” [2009–10]

Cooperation: MURAKAMI Yusuke + The 50th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition + National Institute of Polar Research

“Antarctica Calling: Showa Station Now”

Outline

Antarctica is a continent that had not officially “existed” for human beings until 1820. In 1911, Roald AMUNDSEN reached the South Pole. After a period in which various countries made territorial claims to Antarctica, the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58 and the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 led to the reservation of that continent as an international zone for scientific research. Now Antarctica is the front line of interdisciplinary science, where measurement and research contributes to our knowledge of the global environment and the origins of the Earth and informs our understanding of the Earth’s future. The 50th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) is currently at Showa Station for one year and four months, until February 2010; it performs various kinds of measurements in severe Antarctic weather. What do the members of the expedition who live at this isolated camp experience? This exhibit introduces direct messages from MURAKAMI Yusuke, one of expedition members, with his blog, photos, videos and sounds, and also real-time video streaming from Showa Station, six time zones away, where the seasons are the reverse of those in Japan. In addition, research logs and measurement data gathered by the expedition will be presented from time to time during the exhibition. This exhibition is then a unique opportunity to see, through the eyes of expedition members, an unfamiliar and distant place on which only a handful of people ever get to set foot.

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