THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION JOURNAL #5
in english

From the Netherlands to Svalbard by sailing boat, arrival at longyearbyen

26th april 2024

It's Friday 26 April and I've already been trying to write this post for two days. To tell the story of the crossing, to post a few photos, to share this experience with you. The reality is that I can't manage to write this post. Yesterday I left the boat and went to a flat on dry land, in Longyearbyen, where I'll be staying for the next few weeks. I'm staying with someone who's very nice, we had dinner together yesterday and talked, with a view of the mountains and the ice and the orange sun that lights up everything and never sets. Magnificent, and yet... It's with a heavy, clenched heart that I'm writing these lines, in the comfort of a big armchair in the Longyearbyen library, where I spend a lot of time working, doing my research, and also because there's wifi. I like libraries, it's quiet, you don't have to buy anything to be there, and being surrounded by books is like a big hug. These last few weeks have been, I think, fundamental, for me as a person, for my art, my practice, everything. I met the sea, I feel like I've mixed my blood with hers. And now there's this emptiness. Honestly, it feels surreal to write this: I find it hard to be on dry land, I already feel like going back on a sailboat, learning more, discovering more, and the water around me, the people, the sails, I don't know what, really. I miss the people who have surrounded me these last few weeks, the people I've met on my travels, the deep things we've experienced together, leaving each other, maybe we'll see each other again one day? Even though, it will never be the same. These people are intimately linked to this experience, it unites us. So it's with a heavy heart that I write these lines, what's the point of deflecting what can't be deflected?

I think we all share this, whatever the experience, if it marks us, pierces us, shapes us, moves us, reveals us to ourselves, and perhaps to our world, once it seems to have passed, the void is vertiginous. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, it's a tragedy that the experience becomes a memory.

And frankly, I think I'm fed up with putting distance between myself and my practice for the sake of being professional, I'm fed up with playing a role to look like I don't know what. I'm craving authenticity. I've fantasised and imagined this crossing a thousand times, but despite the difficulties, despite the intensity, despite the nausea and fatigue, it was a thousand times better than I imagined. I think writing it down is like writing a report: I'm telling you what happened. And I'm not ready, I still want to be in the cocoon of the present. To cuddle up to this experience. Let the sea carry me. The sound of the water, day and night. The laughter. The movement of the boat as I sleep.

Another reality mixes with these emotions. It's also the fact that I want to write another longer text, to dedicate myself to a specific form of writing, I think. It seems to me that writing on this blog uses and demands the same corner of my head, and that I feel blocked. So I'll write here when the time is right for me. I have to listen to my process, respect it, and tango with it. Anyway, if I try to bend it, this process, it gives me migraines. I'm in the middle of a personal, human and creative experiment, and it's true that I always find it hard to share experiences while they are happening. What I can tell you is that something fundamental is happening for me. I'm not sure what, but it's fundamental. I think it's OK to share afterwards, too. The networks, the internet, have given us a way of sharing and consuming that's almost direct: I should almost have to have a GoPro on my head and have this project live on the networks all the time. Sharing, being in the public eye all the time. It's an exhausting idea and one that really doesn't fit in with who I am. Having easy access to the internet here makes me feel this injunction even more strongly. For the moment, I want, and need, to do things my own way. I also believe that my creativity, like all energy, is limited, even if it's always being regenerated. And right now I need to keep my creative energy floating, free.

What I can tell you is that when we arrived in the south of Svalbard by boat, we crossed the ice. In the dark water of the sea, you would think that the blocks of ice were illuminated by themselves. When I saw the first block of ice floating on the water, an indescribable emotion swept through me: at last, I was there, in the North. At last, the ice, the glaciers, at last, the Arctic. I felt like I'd been pierced, with the intimate feeling that I'd come to the right place. It gave me incredible strength. I felt a profound power come over me. I'm using this energy in my art, my process, my practice, my human experience, whatever you want to call it.

Without more words, after many words to explain that I don't have the words, I leave you with a few photos of this crossing, raw, without retouching. Sometimes images replace what words can't express. I don't think a picture is worth a thousand words, but it's worth it for what it is: a picture.

For Love, for the rawness and imperfection of existence, for authenticity, for earth,
with rage and love from Longyearbyen.

See you soon

Camille