Abstract/Summary

The exhibition title references a 19th-century trade of ice that occurred between Northern Europe, Northern America, and the sub-continent, prior to the development of artificial refrigeration. The history of the ice trade corresponded to a time-specific configuration of environmental and economic processes; several weeks of transit in uninsulated hulls often resulted in quantities of ice being reduced by 50% in mass in the time taken to reach a destination and sales point. The ice trade also featured in Henry David Thoreau's back-to-nature, preservationist classic, Walden, where the ice-harvest of Walden Pond alludes to a clash of environmental assets and sufficiencies. Thoreau's one-man, one-world approach is seemingly inconsolable with the million dollar international ice exports that capitalised on the ponds and lakes of rural Massachussets. These references and their configurations serve as a loose framework for the exhibition at Chelsea Space, where Ice Trade considers questions of translation and material status at different points of reception.