Daniela Medina Poch ■

Opposite of Time is Imagination

Opposite of Time is Imagination
Daniela Medina Poch
snow and rocks
23 m × 3 m, Installation
Livingston, Antarctica
February, 2026

May Antarctica’s millenary ice shield it from extractivism?

Unlike the Arctic, which is a frozen sea, Antarctica is a frozen land, with minerals lying beneath its ice. The interdependence and tension of the minerals safeguarded by the ice, is a key factor for life as we know it. Care for the antarctic territory means no intervention.

Under the Antarctic Treaty, Antarctica knows no borders and cannot be extracted. And yet, national sovereignty persists as a force.
Can we also imagine a mineral sovereignty? What is the mineral world screaming?

Within this context, the installation proposes a material friction.
In Livingston, Antarctica, ice forms “imagi” and stones form “nation”, both sourced from the immediate surroundings.
As the ice melts, the stones are removed one by one. The nation disappears.
Imagination is suggested as a technology to access Antartica without touching it.
Perhaps as an anti-extractivist tool.

Antarctic ice is the shell of a giant creature that guards life.
Through its reflective surface, it regulates Earth’s temperature.
Melting ice becomes a unit of time, of lifetime.
Imagination, the only nation.

Drone documentation: Oleg Vassilev
Video documentation: Ernesto Bautista
Video edition: Juan Pablo García Sossa and Daniela Medina Poch
Special thanks to St. Kliment Ohridski Base staff, the iceberg, the ocean and the rocks.

Realized within the framework of the Proyecto Colombiano de Arte en la Antártida, the 12th Colombian Expedition to Antarctica, and the Programa Antártico Colombiano, in collaboration with the 38th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition.

Metaprotesting Metaprotesting Metaprotesting

shuuuuusuuuuishui –  The Anarchy of Sheep –  Climate Songs for the Supermarket –  Sustaining Softness amidst Thistles and Snakes –  geolistening shelter –  Das Zentrum von Gestern, die Splitter von heute –  ARDE, homage to reparation processes –  Reset (Chimeric) –  Protected: trace that leaves no trace –  Cuerpo Colectivo –  embodiedclimateagency.net –  estuary thinking –  Intersecting Mediterranean(s) –  What do Snails Think About Nuclear Power Plants? –  Atlantic, Mediterranean, Collision, Coalition –  Environmental Matrix –  If You Listen to Nettles, They Won’t Sting You –  Staying with the Wonder –  The Land of Thunder and Lightning  –  Becoming Anti-Monuments –  Tamed Sirens of the Rhine –  Aqualiteracies –  Babel Media Art –  A Good Listener Knows That Knowledge is Everywhere, And –  Fictions / Facts –  We Want You –  Ciudad Anfibia –  Beyond the Döner –  Artistic Negotiations with a Bank –  1m² Parque la Independencia –  Papel Soberano –  Unitedstater –  A Picture with a Latina –  Metaprotesting –  Public Complaint Office –  Wiping Out My National Identity