Arctic Research: Svalbard
My current work chronicles my experiences in Svalbard, a remote archipelago in the high Arctic, over the past three years—living on a boat in the Arctic Ocean, enduring the twenty-four-hour winter darkness of the Polar Nights, and a month of strenuous, resource-conscious backpacking off-grid deep in the tundra to conduct remote scientific field work with wildlife conservationists studying Svalbard reindeer and changes in tundra biomass. My research focuses on impacts of climate change through ongoing cross-cultural collaborations with polar ecologists and activists. This work is centered around my personal relationships with the disappearing wild, the more-than-human world, and the humans who care for it.
My grandfather, Matthew J. Brennan, was a meteorologist, environmental scientist, conservationist, and educator who conducted research in Antarctica for fourteen months in 1958 during the Antarctic International Geophysical Year, where he served as scientific station leader at Ellsworth Station. His legacy inspires my work.
2023 Arctic Circle Residency: A Journey by Sailing Ship
In the summer of 2023, I participated in the Arctic Circle Residency, where I spent three weeks living on a Barquentine tall ship, sailing the archipelago of Svalbard with artists and scientists working around themes of climate change. This experience of the realities of climate change and mass extinction and how they impact our oceans and world ecosystems, profoundly changed me. It has been a major catalyst for my ongoing climate work. I created a painting series and wrote a hybrid memoir-in-verse about this experience.
2025 Artica Svalbard Residency: Polar Night
In November and December 2025, I returned to the archipelago as an artist-in-residence at Artica Svalbard, Norway’s premier environmental arts residency, where I lived in Longyearbyen, the northernmost settlement in the world, for a month in the twenty-four hour darkness of the Polar Nights. There, I continued my research on human accelerated climate change and its impacts on the High Arctic ecosystem and community. This experience helped me find my place in Longyearbyen’s human community. I made a works-on-paper series while in Longyearbyen, created a stained and fused glass sculpture series about light in the night landscape, and wrote a non-fiction essay about my spiritual experiences under the Aurora Borealis.
2026 Tarandus Field Program: Studying Svalbard Reindeer in the Tundra
In the summer of 2026, I returned to Svalbard to spent a month in the tundra as both artist and field assistant to ecologist and wildlife conservationist Dr. Samantha Dwinnell as part of a long-term research project on Svalbard Reindeer, in collaboration with the University Center of Svalbard and Artica Svalbard. There, we lived in an off-grid cabin 40km from town, and spent our days backpacking throughout the Reindalen area, conducting research on these herbivores and the changing tundra biomass. This experience was both physically strenuous and highly intellectually engaging—a truly wild arts science integration with collaborative projects already underway.
Collaborative Projects & Panels
Watch and listen to Eraser, a percussion piece by my Arctic shipmate, composer and cellist Justin Wright, performed by Sō Percussion at Princeton University. The text for this piece comes from a poem I wrote in Svalbard titled, "Interview with a Bone." I wrote this piece while exploring a historical whaling beach covered in thousands of whale bones.
Watch my 2023 online artist talk and panel discussion with sculptor and Arctic shipmate, Amy Hoagland, presented by the Boulder County Arts Alliance. We discuss our artistic practices, our experiences in Svalbard, and how our journey is influencing our current artistic projects. My talk begins at 3:17.