2026/04/01 by Tristan Duke
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · Environmental Science · #Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature #Posthumanist Ethics and Activism #Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
paper · doi:10.1093/arthis/ulag022
Abstract Artist Tristan Duke shares insights from his interdisciplinary research-based practice at the intersection of art, science, and environmental action, through his experimental photographic series Glacial Optics. Travelling from the melting glaciers of the Arctic to the wildfire-scorched landscape of the American West, and into the ice core archives of climatological laboratories, Duke uses ephemeral ice lenses, crafted from glacial ice, to capture haunting portraits of climate change. Through research encompassing the alchemical history of ‘burning glasses’ made from ice, the science of paleoclimatology and glaciology, and the cosmic data from an observatory built inside a glacier beneath the South Pole, Duke explores glacier ice as a lens through which to understand our world. By recasting the technology of the lens as a part of nature, this photo-essay invites a decentred, post-anthropocentric perspective, positing nature not as a passive object but as an active subject bearing witness to the climate crisis.