Experiment 1.0: From the microalgae to the bowhead whale.
Ice algae and snow algae are playing an important role in speeding up the melting processes happening in the Arctic. This will continue until there is no ice or snow left, affecting entire ecosystems.
Situated in Utqiagvik (Alaska) where most of the population comprises Inupiat, an Indigenous Inuit group dependent on subsistence hunting of bowhead whale, the project serves as both a research outpost and an archive. It aims to study, harvest, and test algae in the environment outside the lab. It becomes an experiment to preserve the local foodweb and ecosystem of Utqiagvik.
Shaped like the natural cracks in Arctic ice, the building sits above ice and snow. The cracks embedded in the long moving corridor generates visuals and paths that open into the landscape. This concept and formal approach allow for the algae to be studied and tested, and to generate an immersive experience into the algaescape, above the snow and below the ice.
The project becomes a live study, that moves between the different scales of the non- humans and humans and how they interact with each other in a rapidly melting world.
