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Kristina Chan: Biography
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Kristina Chan: Habitable Climes

The Sunderland Collection is delighted to announce the second edition of its acclaimed Art Programme, culminating in the creation of new works by artist-photographer and printmaker Kristina Chan, who was inspired by maps and atlases from the Collection, and instruments from The Royal Geographical Society's archives.

Kristina works between photography and printmaking, science and artistry. Fascinated by the relationship between these processes, she explores their ties to physical locations and truth, to memory, time and space.

The Sunderland Collection's rare nineteenth-century "Blue China" terrestrial and celestial wall maps were at the forefront of Kristina's mind when embarking on two journeys to distinct locations.

During trips to the Arctic Circle via the Svalbard Channel, and the Nevada Desert, she experienced extremes in landscape and climate that recalled Claudius Ptolemy's system of 'climes'. First described by Aristotle, this system divides the world into five zones: two frigid regions near the poles, an uninhabitable torrid zone at the equator, and two temperate regions; at the time, only the temperate zones were believed to be habitable.

Kristina's long fascination with the mapmaking process and the tools used to chart the land, seas, and skies – in her words, “the systems and scales we apply to the world” – informs the work throughout Habitable Climes and explores the importance of holding multiple ways of experiencing, knowing, and relating to the earth.

For a full list of available artworks, please email arts@sunderland-collection.

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