How a colossal block of ice became an obsession

By Jonathan Amos.
The science correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Did you develop an obsession during the lock down? Did those weeks and months take you off track? Where did your mind go?

The British artist thought about a large chunk of ice in the South Pole. He'd read an article about a 300-billion-tonne ice cube that calved from the east of the continent. I'll explain the other names, but D28 is called.

Kevin was interested in the satellite images that scientists began publishing of this berg, along with the sometimes surprising colors they would choose to render scenes and emphasise contrast.

It started out small. The artist said that there was just little studies.

I made colour samples and took images that I'd seen of D28. I was making pantones from Antarctica based on the images that were being posted on the internet.

I spent weeks mixing the paint to match the colors. I think it was a form of meditation. I was bound to the studio and it just started developing into something.

The years are 2019: 2021, 2023, and 2025.

There are four oil paintings depicting the life of D28. The first picture shows the outline of the berg after it broke from the edge of the Amery Ice Shelf. Kevin's imagination led to the ones that follow.

The years are 2019: 2021, 2023, and 2025. We don't know when that final speculative view will occur, but it will happen eventually. Icebergs are born to melt away.

Some of the themes in the series are common to people who've seen it. When asked to describe an emotion or feeling, the words that viewers used included "transformation", "scale", "time", "isolation", "drifting", and "awareness".

Satellite imagery will often be coloured by scientists.

Kevin's D28 journey has brought environmental issues and the loss of ice to the forefront of his mind. Being in Switzerland, this is a very serious concern. Local people blanket the ice streams in the summer to protect them from the glaciers retreating rapidly.

If I can make a work of art that can have some sort of impact, or assist in some way, that's a good way to slow down consumption or make people consider things a little bit more.

The Icebergs are born to melt away.

My interest in D28 goes back to the mid-2000s. I was reporting on research that was trying to predict which part of the Amery Ice Shelf would break first.

Satellite images of a child's wobbly front tooth made the area nicknamed "Loose Tooth" a priority.

The cracks in the ice shelf were thought to be imminent by the team studying them. It wasn't. The Amery is still hanging on to the loose tooth. The big berg is now officially designated D28, which is the largest berg in the world.

D28/Molar Berg is seen from the International Space Station.

I joked with the Amery research team that perhaps another dental analogy was needed. Helen said it was the same as a baby tooth. The nickname stuck.

Satellite pictures of "Molar Berg", also known as D28, are regularly posted on the internet by people. Even astronauts on the space station can see it.

Dr Catherine Walker is from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She studied the cracks in the Amery Ice Shelf as a graduate student.

Catherine tells me that it was sad to see it go, because she had had it for a long time.

I like Kevin's paintings. I feel like that's my entire career.

When the berg broke away, it was bigger than Greater London.

They dump huge quantities of fresh water into the ocean. This affects the behavior of the food web.

D28/Molar Berg's travels have taken him around the White Continent. It is now in the south of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Rhne Glacier is covered in white tarpaulins to slow its melting.

It's moving in the direction of the world's biggest ice cube, known as A23, which has been pinned fast to the ocean floor for three decades.

Catherine says that's one of hers. We're the same age and I always watch A23 It calved in 1986 and has started to wiggle recently.

What's the fascination with the giant icebergs? I think it has something to do with their size, like Everest or K2. How do they hold themselves together?

I think that's correct. Their scale is amazing. It's also the way that such imposing objects, built from snows that originally fell on Antarctica thousands of years ago, and which seem as though they ought to be so permanent, can suddenly disintegrate and fade away in a very short time.

D28/Molar Berg is moving towards A23, which is so big it is pinned to the seafloor.

You can follow Jonathan on social media.

Earth science.
The South Pole.
There are Icebergs.
Climate change.