Behind the Scenes: Emma Critchley, visual artist
We caught up with artist Emma Critchley to discuss Witness, a compelling three-screen film installation and meditation on disappearing glaciers, which has its UK premiere at this year’s Brighton Festival.
‘The inspiration for making Witness came from learning the shocking fact that most glaciers around the world are now ‘dead’’.
Tell us more about Witness?
Witness considers the glacier as witness to events which have led to its accelerating decline. The piece was created through research with climate scientists from the Ice Memory Project, a global initiative to create an archive of ice cores from rapidly disappearing glaciers. I worked with a free diver in the world’s deepest indoor pool to choreograph and film two dancers performing underwater sequences.The dancers are suspended in water like the air bubbles in ice cores which contain atmospheres from hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Where did the inspiration for Witness come from?
The inspiration for making Witness came from learning the shocking fact that most glaciers around the world are now ‘dead’. This led me to think about the glacier as an animate body that holds memories. Witness examines the ice core as the post-mortem of a glacier, describing the events that led to its death. This sets up an interplay between the human body and the body of ice.
How would you describe the show in three words?
Immersive, reflective, interconnectivity.
What do you hope people will take away from Witness?
I hope that they will have been moved by the work and will take away a feeling of reflectiveness and an awareness of the interconnectivity between all beings - sentient and non-sentient; and a sense of being a citizen of the world.
Are you looking forward to Brighton Festival 2022?
It is such a privilege to be part of a festival which celebrates culture in all its diverse forms, and to be able to present Witness amongst such an exciting international programme of events.
Anything else Brighton Festival audiences need to know…?
This is a new version of Witness, reworked specially for Brighton Festival as a three-screen installation with live spoken word performances at set times in multiple languages.
Witness was created through research with scientists at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice and The Institute of Polar Sciences. Interviews conducted remotely in Peru and Kenya with people living with glacial retreat every day also fed into the project..
The Ice Memory Project informed a series of workshops with dancers from the Veneto region in Italy. Two dancers underwent a period of intensive free dive training in the world’s deepest diving pool.
Witness 7-15 May 2022, Book here
