There is No Hope is a photographic exhibition about the fate of the earth and the possibility of its survival. The exhibition is the result of a conversation between the photographer and a scientist aboard a research vessel in the Antarctic peninsular. The works in this show express the melancholy of the question, and the show gets its title from the scientist’s conclusion: there is no hope.
The work consists of six large cyanotypes (titled Hopeless I–VI). Shifting tones of cyan blue trace the jagged cliff faces of snow-capped peaks. Using the materials of a photographer (photographic chemicals), the work employs the hand-painted brushstrokes of a painting, delineating all that is not snow. The resulting images are a painterly approximation of a tone drop-out photograph. The artist’s gestures and painterly omissions present the viewer with an accurate map of the peaks and ridges at the edge of our inhabitable world.
The work was a response to the Australian Government’s tepid response to climate change—a response that remains unchanged today. By presenting Antarctica’s future as hopeless, the artist deliberately provokes the viewer to reflect upon their own beliefs and desire for action.