Tristan Duke: Glacial Optics

Using camera lenses made of Arctic ice, Tristan Duke's ongoing, experimental photographic project, Glacial Optics, explores our current moment of climate crisis.

In the spring of 2022, artist Tristan Duke set sail for the Arctic Island of Svalbard, the fastest-warming place on the planet. His goal was to craft functioning camera lenses from the very ice of the glaciers. Through melting ice lenses, Duke captured portraits of an Arctic landscape in quiet turmoil. These ephemeral lenses became ...