Artist K.A. Colorado’s Ice Core Sculpture Imbedded Into Volcano By South American Climbing Team
Climbing Expedition Inters “Kyoto Protocol Dialogue” Ice Core Sculpture Created by K.A. Colorado Into the Cauldron of Volcano Pillan at 19,711 feet high, near the Argentine/Chilean Border; Art Performance is Part of Artist’s Series on Climate Change Dialogue
A team of four mountain climbers from Córdoba, Argentina successfully imbedded one of the Ice Core Sculptures created by International Artist K.A. Colorado into the cauldron of Volcano Pillan near the Argentine and Chilean border. The team was able to reach the 19,711-foot-high summit of the volcano after opening a new route from the Northeast face of Mount Pillan, and performed the interment of the K.A. Colorado “Kyoto Protocol Dialogue” Ice Core as part of K.A. Colorado’s series of artwork entitled “Dialogue on Climate Change”. The entire expedition and art performance were documented on video as well as through still photography and survey mapping. The team of climbers consisted of Coke Palacios, Pablo Lukach, Leo Calvete, and Chacho Pacheco .
The K.A. Colorado Ice Core Volcano Project involved replicating a scientific ice core sampling through creating an acrylic Ice Core sculpture and imbedding coded text about the Kyoto Protocol into the sculpture. The Ice Core sculpture was then carried the entire way by the exploration team from the point of inception at Mar del Plata to the high altitude volcanic caldera of Volcano Pillan, one of the world’s highest volcano peaks, located in the Central Argentina-Chile region of the Andes. The Ice Core Sculpture was subsequently interred into the volcanic subsoil on-site by team member Coke Palacios. The team then collected a sampling of volcanic organic material from that very same cauldron and transported it back for K.A. Colorado, who is now working to imbed the sediment into a new Ice Core Sculpture for exhibition in climate and art context. The “sister” Ice Core with the volcanic data imbedded will be featured at one of K.A. Colorado’s upcoming art exhibitions and installations, along with the documentary video and photography of the interment of the Ice Core Sculpture into the Volcano.
“The purpose of this project was to create an art performance documentation of a site-specific artistic installation that will relate dialogue of painted script in the sculptural form of a replicated ice core (as is studied in the Antarctic by scientists) to be located at Mount Pillan’s volcanic summit in the Argentine mountain range,” stated K.A. Colorado. “The concept is of fire and ice coming together, as well as the symbolic importance of the historic Kyoto Protocol Treaty and its important environmental guidelines. The sculpture is documented visually as it is being returned by burial into a geologic substrate, and serves as an environmental artwork.”
The climbing expedition team also measured the peak of Volcano Pillan using altimeters, and documented the information to add to the definitive data on the volcano and the region. The climb was extremely arduous and exhausting, but the team completed their mission of reaching the summit of the mountain and imbedding the Ice Core in the peak of the volcano.
Initiated in 2007, the climbing expedition required one year of planning and two weeks to complete. The reaching of the summit and imbedding of the Ice Core took place on Friday, March 20th. The route began at the Mount Pissis base camp (Mar del Plata) at an altitude of 4,200 meters. The team departed early in the morning via an offroad track aboard a truck and, after an hour, arrived at the base of Mount Pillán at 4,900 meters. The climbers then began their climbing trek to the top at approximately 8:30 a.m., approaching the volcano from the northeast face and making a straight line to the summit. The climbers reached the peak at 3:00 in the afternoon, at which point, after a nearly seven-hour climb to a height of nearly 20,000 feet, they performed the imbedding of the Ice Core sculpture.
The “Kyoto” Ice Core is part of several series of Ice Core Sculptures begun by K.A. Colorado in January 2008, which are in turn part of a larger series of major artwork focusing on climate concerns and the arctic experience created and produced by K.A. Colorado over the past twenty years. This series includes the artistic presentation and interpretation of scientific data and “climate dialogue” through the creation of ice core and iceberg sculptures, paintings, and on-site installations, including a series of ice core paintings completed over the past ten years.