HC SVNT DRACONES (FARE) #1

Format: A3, photographic print. A diptych of seascape photograph with illustrations incorporated.

The photo is a poetic comment (as a digital collage) on the climate change reaching the Faroese waters. This is already presenting itself in an increasing amount of storms and rains hitting the islands. The climate change shows signs in different forms and one is the melting of the polar ice, which is one reason of sea level rise in the world. The charts incorporated in the illustration are portraying the rate of sea lever rise and the rate of growth of industry during the past hundred of years.

It is also an homage to the Atlantic Ocean, as the scenery is from my voyage March 2015 to the southern island, Suðuroy, in the Faroe Islands. There is also a reference to old maps, where sea monsters were drawn in unknown waters. These sea monsters were based both on imagination and on oral tales told by fishermen (of the creatures they encountered out at sea). I think old maps are fascinating, especially the old map of the Nordic countries, made by Olaus Magnus (the Carta Marina, 1527-39).

In this collage the Sea Monsters are not the Faroese themselves nor the creatures in the ocean but the powers that pollute the oceans and the air.

When I made the photo as a double mirrored image in the ocean waves emerges a face which I see as the self portrait. A try to locate myself in the seascape, in the ever changing sea.

This work has been part of the Polar Self Portraits travelling exhibition.