Polar Exploration is a work informed by Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, Baudrillard’s concept of simulation and Bachelard’s ideas around space.

Heterotopia are described by Foucault as the spaces we treat as ‘other’, unlike the common spaces we mainly inhabit. Heterotopia can be physical spaces such as psychiatric hospitals, care homes or art galleries. They can also describe non geographical spaces such as the moment before hearing a voice when answering the telephone or before the loss of virginity. Foucault defined heterotopia through set of principles. Polar Exploration is informed by Foucault's ideas about spaces of ‘illusion’, ‘compensation’ and ‘deviation’.

Baudrillard’s concept of ‘simulacra’ (how we interpret the real) is also a concept explored in the work. Baudrillard discusses how humans live within layers of ‘simulcra’ and ‘simulation’ and so finding something real is as difficult as intentionally making an illusion. ‘The impossibility of rediscovering an absolute level of real is of the same order as the impossibility of staging illusion’, Baudrillard (1981, p19).

Bachelard in Poetics of Space, describes the house as a container for daydream and memory. He states that in the kingdom of the imagination, the basement and attic are polar opposites. The attic is a metaphor for rationality or clarity of mind. Polar Exploration attempts to be a space of contemplation. Both a still and dynamic space, both familiar and extraordinary.

Play and how as adults our ideas of socially acceptable modes of play shift from our childhood view, is explored in the work. Polar Exploration is an opportunity to contemplate but also to play.

Polar Exploration is a simulation of the Arctic experience as I envisage it. In my imagination I perceive the Arctic to be a blank space. A space of light that smells and tastes of mint. A space where hopes, desires, fears and flights of fancy can be projected and displaced. The intention is to create a space where the imagination can play.