Inside the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, little pieces of Antarctica were melting: cross-sections of an ice core from the continent’s Newall Glacier, each one about the size of a beverage coaster and encased in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag.
The artist Gala Porras-Kim watched approvingly during a visit in March, pointing out the air pockets that had started to form.
“The ice cores are an archive of ancient air, because the air gets stuck in the layers of ice,” she said, pointing at the display during an interview at the museum.
This particular core, which Porras-Kim had obtained from the National Science Foundation’s Ice Core Facility in nearby Lakewood, Colo., contained ice that had formed some 10,000 years ago, around the beginning of the Holocene period, in geological terms.
“The ancient air will get released into this room — a reunion of this old air with the new air, mixing together,” she said, describing it as an “organic de-accession process.”
Persons:
Porras, Kim, ”
Organizations:
of Contemporary Art, National Science
Locations:
Denver, Antarctica, Lakewood, Colo