Sitting in a tent in the middle of the wilderness in the Antarctic during a massive storm rates as one of the most exhilarating experiences Dunedin artist Claire Beynon has had on the icy continent.
Ms Beynon is recently back from a season on the ice, where she collaborated on art projects with scientists and deep sea divers.
It was her second trip to the Antarctic and to Explorers Cove, New Harbour, but that did not diminish the experience, she said.
"The landscape has changed dramatically in three years. It's a different collection, provided different opportunities."
This time, she did much more filming and sound collection as well as work with the flotilla of bamboo boats she took with her.
Based on the edge of the Taylor Dry Valleys, she also had the opportunity to travel further from the field camp.
"The sense of wilderness was more dramatic. There was only this tent on ice."
Camping in the middle of the storm, with zero visibility, was "exhilarating", as was pitching a tent on an "enormous" fiord of deep blue ice in front of the Wilson-Piedmont Glacier surrounded by a graveyard of icebergs, she said.
On the fiord, they played the porcelain bell vessels Ms Beynon had taken with her, their rings mixing with the sounds of ice cracking.
She hoped to make a series of short silent films with her work from the Antarctic and next month would go to the United States to learn how to put films together.
The work with the boats would form part of an exhibition she was putting together for the Art House in Christchurch in August.
