Polarbyen: Northlandia’s Capital

Hand pulled original Woodcut Print (oil-based ink on handmade cloud dragon rice paper)
Paper size: 8x10” / 20x25cm
Image size: 6x8.75” / 15x22cm
2022
Editions of 100 + 5AP
unframed
 
Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost town. 
 
On my coastal walk right before we boarded our expedition boat, I saw the townscape from a different angle. I saw the uniformed houses and the surrounding majestic mountains.
 
It dawned on me that Northlandia, a vast country that spans across the arctic, needs a capital! And the town design would be based on Longyearbyen!
 
**Each print is original, hand-pulled and may look slightly different from the image sample.
 
 
About Northlandia Arctic Woodcuts
 
In Oct-Nov 2022, I went on a month-long research residency programme “The Arctic Circle” in the arctic Svalbard for Northlandia, one of the five imaginary countries in my lifelong World of 2084 project. During the trip, I sketched landscape on site on small woodblocks and weaved Northlandia narrative into the composition and carve the woodblocks on the boat and in my room in Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost town.
 
The collection of 24 Northlandia Arctic Woodcuts was then be hand-printed in Hong Kong and launched in December 2022. These small woodcut prints serve as a starting point for larger works (woodcuts and drawings and more) under the Northlandia arctic narrative I will develop over the next decade.
 
 
About Northlandia
 
Northlandia is one of the five imaginary countries in The World of 2084, my lifelong project to portray a futuristic world in the corresponding year.
 
Drawing from diverse sources such as early arctic pioneer history, Inuit and Central American mythology, science fiction and children's literature, literary tradition magical realism and fairy tales, Northlandia is a surreal arctic tale of the precarious balance between human greed and the magical landscape, between the north and the rest of the world and between self-preservation and the rapidly changing climate.