CMU Alum’s Exhibit to be Featured at Scandinavia House

The exhibit opened October 22 at Scandinavia House, On the Arctic Edge — Artists Explore the Far North presents three contemporary photo-based artists whose work traverses the regions of the Arctic Circle to probe themes ranging from time and memory, to landscape and the built environment, to science and mythology, to our changing climate. Clare Benson, 2008 CMU graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio/Photography, is one of the featured artists.

Photographer and Interdisciplinary artist Clare Benson’s series Until There Is No Sun is a poetic investigation of the Arctic’s duality: the relationships between light and seeing, earth and sky, science and ancient myth. Over the span of nearly a year living in the far north of Arctic Sweden, Benson worked alongside space physicists, Sami Indigenous reindeer herders, and scientists studying the eyes of Arctic reindeer to capture photographs, videos, and collected artifacts, exploring how weather and time have worn and carved a world that slowly turns its back to the light.

My creative language is one of metaphors, and my studio work suggests connections between things that may not, on a surface level, seem to be related. I am interested in relationships and contradictions: the earth and the sun, mother and father, human and nature, science and mythology. Through photography, video, sculpture, and writing, my research manifests into work that combines elements of science, nature, and personal history.  -- Clare Benson

Clare’s personal site: https://clarebenson.com