
Northlandia
2022 - ongoing
Drawing from diverse sources such as early arctic pioneer history, Inuit and Central American mythology, science fiction and children's literature, literary tradition magical realism and fairy tales, Northlandia is a surreal arctic tale of the precarious balance between human greed and the magical landscape, between the north and the rest of the world and between self-preservation and the rapidly changing climate.
The Ice Queen (a polar bear ice sculpture) has a lot on her hands. With half the country's glaciers gone and its permafrost shifting, the Queen is desperately working with her walrus magicians to close Pandora's box. To insulate the temperature and to ward off unwelcome profiteers, she is building gigantic igloos to shelter the glaciers with Chief Engineer (an arctic fox) and a team of construction workers (arctic hares.) To further slow down temperature warming, she has hundreds of giant puffins at the southern border blowing the rising warm air southward around the clock. The walrus magicians are knee-deep rebuilding glaciers with a mountain-size ice-cream maker and spend sleepless nights capturing wild aurora borealis and cultivating artificial ones for future fuel. The Ice Queen trains her fat jumpy seal military troop to fend off the other four G5 nations, lurking for the perfect opportunity to pounce on Northlandia for precious resources. The Ice Queen is skeptical of the south and fiercely protective of her land, yet her sister (a three-horned narwhal) traverses between the north and the south, hoping for diplomatic negotiations. And then there is this southern explorer who sneaks into Northlandia to seek the secret northern passageway, not to mention the influx of climate refugees seeking a more habitable environment...