Yesterday I buried my mother’s jewels on Northern Glacier. I was Lucky. A few meters further south and I would have landed on Starvation Glacier.
She had a dream. Go to the North Pole. It was a part of our life: One day she would go. She died two years ago having preserved her dream. I guess that’s why she never went.
I never had this dream. It was hers. But I was invited to go to the North Pole. And may be I went a little for her. To take her there.
In my suitcase : a photo, a necklace, a ring.
I chose a portrait of her in the snow. Winter holidays.
Her white and red Chanel necklace. I grew up with those pearls around her neck.
And her diamond ring. During the war my grandfather, running away from the Germans to hide in the mountains of Grenoble, afraid a building he owned would be seized, exchanged it for a diamond ring. Not a good deal. My grandmother did not talk to him for a year.
So I waited to reach the most northern place of this trip, where I could go ashore with my mother.
Laurie, my roomate on the boat, suggested that, if the weather did not allow us to do so, I still could flush the ring down the toilet. Actually, it is a thought my mother would have loved. During a few minutes I imagine her laughing to tears to this idea. But the weather was good.
I chose a beautiful stone in the center of the beach
I buried the portrait, the necklace, the diamond. Cried a little. Took a photo. Martha sang a verse of Marylin Monroe – my mother’s other passion along with the North Pole - diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
Now, my mother has gone to the North Pole.
I wonder if her glacier will advance or retreat, if the climate changes will carry her to the sea to be taken north by the West Greenland current, or retreat up the valley towards the ice cap, or if she will stay on the beach as a marker in time where the glacier was in the holocene period.
And maybe in thousands of years, specialists in glaciology will find her ring and discuss endlessly this flash of diamond in Inuit culture.
Or if a treasure hunter or beachcomber will discover it and exchange it for a house in the mountains of Grenoble.
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9 Comments
Linda
Sophie: This is so touching. To leave part of our loved ones in wonderful places. My parents always wanted to spend their retirement year traveling the country – never happened, Dad confined to wheelchair. So I have been leaving small piles of their ashes at the horse shows I visited this summer and at all the KT Tunstall concerts I have been to this year. In a flower bed at Meijer Gardens, along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, in the pines at Interlochen, amongst cornstalks at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Places they never were, but now always will be ………
mary veale
lISUAL ARTISTOVE THIS IDEA YOUR MOTHER WOULD TOO AND THE PEARLS WILL SURVIVE INTO THE FUTURE POWERFUL tHE STORY OF YOUR FATHER IS VERY INTERESTING ALSO AS I LIVE IN GRENOBLE THE CLIMATE CHANGES HAVE VERY MUCH EFFECTED THE FRENCH ALPS SO MAYBE YOUR NEXT PROJECT WOULD BE FOR YOUR FATHER ;bEST WISHES mARY VEALE IRISH VISUAL ARTIST
cathy wills
this follows all your work, remembrance, sadness, loss, interest in women, family – sweetness too. Well done again Sophie.
I will continue to read the blogs with interest (ps I know Dave Buckland from years ago, too) Keep well and warm
Cathy
Curator in London and Paris
Deanna J
I am speechless. The beauty of this is indescribable.
kristin
i may be kind of incompetent when it comes to finding homepages, yours is hidden. anyway. I´ve been trying to reach you because im very intressed in your work with elder and youth in stockholm. Im trying to make a reasearch at konstfack stockholm about charing visual worlds. Anyway. Why dont you send me an email and tell me about your project? im interested in your experience of “the making of knowledge” that the participants made.
by the way, i spent a few weeks between illulisat and kangeslussuaq this summer. it was wonderful, especially diskobay.
Kiff
Bonjour! My name is Kiff and I am a student at Brighton and I have chosen to study your work as I saw it for the first time in Paris a few years ago and I was so inspired by it that I had to see more! I have read all your books and also some written by other people about you but to get an email from my hero would just be a dream. I understand you are very busy but if you have any time at all for your number one fan it would be more than much appreciated!!
karol
**** Absolutely Beautiful ******
**** ** ***** * ****** *** * *****
kiara
wat is wroug with u
Sanchita
I had tears in my eyes. Lost both my parents now and I miss them every day
11 Trackbacks
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