Arsarneq V.2

The ARSARNEQ V.2 ice monolith encloses within its core an aurora borealis captured by Jesus S. Baptista and Philippe Zappadu during their creative residency aboard the Atka boat in Greenland. Trapped within a vertical, translucent structure, this fragment of a distant landscape becomes both preserved and transformed.

Emitting a diffuse, shifting glow, the monolith evokes a frozen phenomenon that paradoxically remains alive through light. The aurora, typically ephemeral and immaterial, is here contained, slowed down, and re-materialized. What was once vast and atmospheric is compressed into a finite object — a luminous memory embedded in ice.

The piece plays on tension between containment and expansion, between the monumental scale of natural phenomena and the intimate, almost architectural presence of the object. The viewer is confronted with a silent, radiant mass that seems to breathe from within, suggesting an inner landscape rather than a fixed form.

Presented in a darkened space, the work activates its surroundings through subtle gradients of blue and green light, echoing the sensory experience of polar environments while displacing it into an exhibition context.

The installation has previously been exhibited at Ososphère in Strasbourg and at Chapelle XIV in Paris.