What’s New
On Friday 24 October, the Centre Culturel Irlandais screened Methane Lake, a film installation by artist Siobhán McDonald, as part of its focus on visual arts during Art Basel Paris. This year's theme explores concepts of water and fluidity as they relate to gender, language and quantum states.
About Methane Lake
Methane Lake examines ice as both material and memory. McDonald paints with invisible methane gas on large blocks of ice formed at different moments in history, some up to 20,000 years old, transported from the Arctic ice sheet to the British Antarctic Survey. As these blocks melt, they reveal brief traces of ancient atmospheric conditions, an indirect record of Earth’s frequency in deep time.
The film reflects on how geological processes embedded in permafrost unfold on scales far beyond human lifespans. McDonald uses the melting surfaces as a vehicle to evoke Ensō, an ancient concept rooted in Japanese calligraphy of a circle written with canes or sticks in mid-air.
The soundtrack, A World Without Ice by Jonathan Nangle, draws on glacial field recordings and references the physics of vibrational frequencies, connecting to historic ideas such as Kepler’s “harmony of the spheres.”
About the SciArt collaboration
Siobhán McDonald’s research-based practice intersects atmospheric chemistry, glaciology and Earth observation, using natural materials to examine the instability of Earth systems in the Anthropocene.
Within the JRC’s SciArt initiative, she works closely with researchers on ice, methane and atmospheric dynamics, combining scientific measurements with artistic interpretation to expose different facets of the same environmental processes. Through ongoing dialogue, access to research and exchanges with JRC scientists working on climate, sea-level rise and cryosphere monitoring, Methane Lake becomes part of a broader effort to make scientific knowledge visible and publicly discussable.
Details
- Publication date