Works from The Dissolving Landscape series, 2016–

During the summer of 2024, Canadian artist Ella Morton found herself on a journey to what felt like the end of the earth, confronting the sublime and volatile region of the northern Arctic Ocean. Pack Ice #1 and Pack Ice #2 are images created as a result of a long-term project called The Dissolving Landscape that began in 2016 during The Arctic Circle residency in Svalbard, Norway. 

Situated as murals on the glass façade of the Canada Line’s Vancouver City Centre Station, the two seemingly abstract images of the vast ocean appear to shift and crack like the polar ice packs themselves. Morton’s pursuit of experimentation and chance in her practice contrasts with the slow and precise nature of photographing with her large-format camera. The artist soaks film in acidic solutions before exposure in order to degrade the emulsion. Then, when printing the images, she uses the mordançage technique – traditionally saved for black-and-white silver gelatin prints – lifting the emulsion off the paper and creating mysterious veils and textures.

Morton’s seductive yet unsettling large-scale images are suggestive of an otherworldly portal to a remote and fragile ecosystem changing at an unnerving pace as the planet warms and sea levels rise as a result of the climate crisis.

Presented in partnership with the CONTACT Photography Festival.