Since that time, Saskia and Konrad have continued to offer settings and environments reflective of the world – indeed, in one case, the cosmos – we inhabit. I’ve never failed to be awed by their work, the span of their creativity and imagination; thus, I’ve attempted to record much of their work in these pages.
For early 2025 (having opened on February 26th, 2025), they have drawn on a tragic feat of exploration from over 100 years ago – and done so in so subtle a manner, the core might easily be missed. At the same time, their canvas is so rich, it still has the power to speak volumes to us on the nature of life and the human condition.
Terra Nova presents a frozen environment caught in the twilight common to our polar regions; ice floes hug the cold, green waters, their frigid surfaces rippled, pitted and crumpled from endless collisions and as a result of freezing / thawing / freezing in confined pools of water forcing them to fight one another for space. Around them stand great towers of ice suggesting they are hiding the vast bulk of their mass below the waves, as a full Moon hovers on the horizon, its size magnified by the depth of atmosphere through which it is seen.
In the distance and dark against the horizon, stand the blocky forms of human habitation, lights visible while the lamp of a floating warning buoy flickers close by. They act as a siren call, drawing people across the ice and the planks painstakingly laid across and between the floes. As the structures are approached, they reveal themselves as huts built on the ice, whilst a colony (or perhaps a waddle, if they are actually just passing by) of penguins quietly disclose the fact this is somewhere in the Antarctic. But where? And what might this place be?
A ship’s harpoon sitting on the ice alongside the largest of the huts, together with the canvas boats moored on the water suggest this is a shore-based whaling station. The fact that it is possible to see the graceful forms of humpbacks breaching the surrounding waters might well support this, and it is certainly one direction the imagination can run fully and freely. But there is another.
On the 15th June, 1910, the converted sealer Terra Nova departed Cardiff, Wales, for Antarctica. Originally built as a whaler in Scotland in 1884, the ship already had a proven career operating in both Arctic and Antarctic waters as a sealer, survey / exploratory vessel and in recovery operations for other expeditions. In all, her career lasted almost 60 years, coming to a sad end in 1943; however it was that departure from Cardiff in 1910 that marked perhaps her most famous voyage, as she was the transport for the last expedition to the Antarctic continent led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott.
Beset by issues and misfortunes from the start, the story of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition is most keenly remembered for the the tragic loss of the attempt to reach the South Pole – the overall focus of the expedition – which resulted in the deaths of all the men who made the final trek to the the Pole, only to find their rivals led by Roald Amundsen had reached it first. It is this tragic and now legendary “race” that is commemorated within Konrad and Saskia’s Terra Nova – and done so in a most poignant manner.
Alongside the Landing Point is the traditional Natthimmel welcome, sitting just over the water. Clicking it will deliver an information folder, within which can be found a poem, a beautifully framed and told lament to Scott and his expedition.
“Do you know of the land-walkers who came here once?”
asked the elder whale, his voice a ripple through the water.
The younger one flicked her tail, sending a stream of bubbles upward. “Many have come, many have gone. But I sense you speak of a tale worth telling.”“Ah, yes,” the elder murmured. “A tale of struggle, of ice,
of those who dared to race where no fin could guide them.”
The younger whale listened as the elder sang of the land-walkers who arrived on a ship of wood and iron, calling themselves explorers.– extract from Terra Nova, by Saskia Rieko
Through this lament, which quotes a part of Scott’s final entry in his diary (dated 29th March, 1912), the setting falls into place: the huts crouched on the the ice stand as a reference to those the expedition variously established – most notably Scott’s own hut (which stands to this day) on Cape Evans, Ross Island; the harpoon reminds us of the heritage of the Terra Nova herself; and whilst Scott’s expedition took place in the long days of Antarctic’s summer, the twilight lighting of the setting.
Meanwhile, the landscape falls into place as both the ice shelf from which Scott’s final three teams set out on the attempt to reach the South Pole and the hardness of the frozen landscape with which they had to contend, while the haunting audio stream (do make sure you toggle the accompanying audio stream on when visiting, it is offered as a haunting alternative to local sounds) accentuate the magnificent desolation – to quote another explorer of an altogether different age – of the frozen continent and the isolation faced by Scott and his men.
While the lament serves as a reminder of the sad end of Scott and the four men who joined him on the final trek to the South Pole – Edward Wilson, Lawrence Oates (who, stricken by frostbite and scared he was becoming a deadly burden to his colleagues, was said to have stepped out of their tent to his death in a blizzard with the quietly-spoken words, “I am just going outside and may be some time”) Henry Bowers and Edgar Evans – it also perhaps serves as a commentary on those of us concerned about the continued maltreatment our planet and how we might be remembered (if we are remembered at all) in the future –
“Even in the end, they thought of those they left behind.”
The younger whale exhaled a plume of mist. “A sad story.”
“A true one,” the elder corrected. “And in the deep, the truth matters.”– extract from Terra Nova, by Saskia Rieko
A truly heartrending setting when seen and heard in context, Terra Nova is fully deserving a visit and contemplation.
SLurl Details
- Natthimmel: Terra Nova (NewMoon, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 