Ice, Quartz, and Memory

2025
Dimensions variable
Reclaimed ice core storage container from British Antarctic Survey, silica (quartz) sand

This silver-foiled container, which had been used since the 1990 to store a piece of Antarctic ice from Dyer Plateau, is now filled with silica sand.

Silica sand is the primary material used to produce fiber-optic cables that transmit information across global data networks. These cables sustain the invisible architectures of data centers—the digital archives of our time. As the demand for data storage and processing grows, so does the energy required to sustain it, intensifying the global warming that melts the same polar ice this container once held. 

The work reflects on how the planet’s frozen archives are disappearing, and how natural records are being overwritten by human-made digital ones, while our dependence (addiction) on these networks grows ever stronger.