An art project to see me through a difficult winter, in which I would be mostly unable to leave my second floor flat due to an energy limiting illness.
A Woman in the Polar Night is a memoir by Christiane Ritter of her year living in a hut in the Arctic. Like Ritter, I was looking down the barrel of a long dark stay in an environment that had to be carefully considered, was often impenetrable and full of unexpected dangers. Like Ritter, I knew that this harsh period would one day end, bringing in warmth and a greater freedom of movement.
I created an art piece using the words of her memoir as a base.
Taking inspiration from Maria Popova's Almanac of Birds, and very much as a homage, I decided to make a card deck. Each day, I took a photograph from the windows of my home or of things that my partner had brought in from the outside and cut words from the next page of Ritter's memoir. I then put the words together across the photograph, letting my subconscious play.
This card deck shows the journey from October 1st, with the first bite of cold, to March 31st 2026 when Spring opens up the world (or at least the windows) again.
