This is a six-week funded research residency at the British School at Rome supported by the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham trust .

This project is the next step in the ‘Emergency!’ work on the precarity of glacial archaeology emerging in the Alps as ice melts at unprecedented rates. In Rome, there is three aims: to study rare sources documenting human perceptions of Italy’s glacial past, gather source material for new work, and connect with researchers for future interdisciplinary exchange.
This projects shifts the focus of interest in glacial emergence to Italy, where glacial archaeology was established with the discovery of ‘Ötzi’ in 1991. Following in the footsteps of ancient travellers, the project starts travelling to the residency overland, via South Tyrol Archaeological Museum in Bolzano, to study Italian glacial archaeology, gathering documentation drawings and written notes as the basis of new drawings reflecting on what emerges out of melt – both the objects and the landscape. In Rome, the reserach uses the BSR library and archive holding of visual and written accounts of glacial crossings in the little ice age or in its early decline, eg. of J.D Forbes, James Hakewill’s drawings and Ashby photographs . Making transcripts from these accounts will enables comparisons with my contemporary drawn records and ask how did it look and feel to be in these environments at the point at which change was becoming apparent? Research will also involve visits to post-glacial sites near Rome (e.g. Lago della Duchessa) and studies of the use of rock flour pigment in contemporary and historic use.

This research will inform new shadow-drawings made using sediment, glass and light, layering imagery, to reflect on the memory of place and environmental change. I will use the residency to gather source material and as a space to explore more poetic thinking, using the idea of glacier as metaphor, a carrier of objects held in temporary dialogue.