Solo Exhibition at Hillyer Art Space, Washington DC 2017
The journalist stood in an open field, snow crunching under his boots amidst patches of moss-like tundra. Behind him, the tiny coal mining outpost of Ny-Ålesund lay quietly: a few stout, scattered buildings painted in red and goldenrod. Mountains cupped the outpost in the south.
He looked out over the water as wind cut across the fjord; the sun had been back above the horizon for a few months. The day was no longer marked by the always-dawn light of early spring.
The Norge was quieter than he’d expected, a slumbering silver creature of the air. Only the ropes hanging down its sides moved, whispering as the wind pushed them against the airship’s hull. The great vessel appeared delicate next to the metal tower that had been built as its launching point and anchor.
A crowd had gathered for the launch, huge by any standard for Spitzbergen. They raised their hats, they cheered, tears stinging their cheeks as they gave in to the joy and the anxiety of the journey that the floating fabric ship was just now undertaking.
The feverish preparation of the previous few days -- the hurry of mechanics fretting over the motors, the packing and repacking of supplies, the nervous testing of every wire, pipe and stay -- all crescendoed in that morning, as light broke and the breeze gathered briskly coming off the nearby glaciers.
The Norge flew straight towards the morning sun, low and golden in the sky. As she moved across the water, graceful and slow, a sudden silence fell across the little outpost, feeling as quiet as midnight despite the ever waxing glow of the sun.
The journalist took off his mittens, the air stinging his fingertips. “The Arctic smiles now,” he wrote, looking out over the bay as the ship grew smaller, a little black speck swallowed by the golden glow of the north, “but behind the silent hills lies death.”
