My studio’s visit to Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia’s Climate Science school took us to a basement containing one of the world’s largest ice core collections, highlighting the scale and significance of material-based climate research at Columbia. This experience was contrasted with Susan Schuppli’s recent lecture and her works Moving Ice (2024), Climate Signals from Svalbard (2024), and “Ice-Core Media.” Susan’s work engages with materials such as ice as a mediator between various realms of knowledge production, understanding these materials in their highly localized situations. I observed her work questioning the prevailing epistemologies surrounding Arctic climate science. After my time at the Earth Observatory and looking at Schuppli’s work, I am concerned with the following tensions: Why are these science spaces determining the climate conditions of the world? Why can't Indigenous spaces also create influential climate science knowledge, one that influences policy and broader mainstream discourse¹? In facing such questions, this paper challenges the knowledge production of climate science². Environmental sciences have long ignored Indigenous communities’ long-term climate observations³. Schuppli’s work explores data proxies, both technoscientific and cultural, and questions the epistemologies that surround ecology⁴. This paper examines the tensions between Western climate science and indigenous traditional knowledge and consider how art, particularly Schuppli’s work, can challenge and expand our understanding of climate knowledge⁵.
Ice cores are considered the highest resolution dataset in modeling
climate patters, as seen in “Ice-Core Media”. Photo by Susan Schuppli.
climate patters, as seen in “Ice-Core Media”. Photo by Susan Schuppli.
Ice cores, alongside tree rings and ocean sediments which are also studied at Columbia’s climate science school, are considered data proxies which help model climate patterns and give access to information about climatic history going back 100s of years—long before the inventions of measures. Ice is a material that provides “earth evidence” in helping us understand the temporal and spatial evolutions of the climate, almost like a time machine. However, this reliance on these data-driven methodologies reveals a significant gap: the lack of consideration for cultural proxies, such as detailed climactic observations by Inuit communities. Schuppli’s work critiques this oversight. In “Ice-Core Media,” she questions the lack of consideration for indigenous knowledge or input in studying ice cores in the Arctic. Her film CAN THE SUN LIE? explores the first-hand claims made by indigenous communities who recognized the changes in the atmosphere through their observation of the difference in the location of the sun, a phenomenon that modern science confirmed years later. These Indigenous observations, deeply rooted in oral traditions and a profound connection to the landscape, offer valuable insights that are often less resource-intensive compared to the costly and resource-heavy process of ice core extraction⁶. By highlighting cases where Indigenous observations preceded scientific discovery, Schuppli advocates for integrating this experiential knowledge into climate science. This integration could address gaps in our climate understanding and offer a more comprehensive and sustainable approach to climate research.
Technical evidence presented in court in 1886, as seen in CAN THE SUN LIE?, depicting the sun
as a material witness to the observed atmospheric changes. Photo by Susan Schuppli.
as a material witness to the observed atmospheric changes. Photo by Susan Schuppli.
The observational knowledge of Indigenous communities requires material evidence to be bestowed with legitimacy and integrated into mainstream scientific frameworks and climate policies⁷. In recent years, Inuit hunters of the Canadian territory Nunavut noticed changes in the formation of sea ice, which affects their seasonal hunting activities. This knowledge was shared with scientists, who later verified it with satellite data to create a more accurate model of sea ice changes. In CAN THE SUN LIE?, observational claims of changes in the sun were presented to a jury in the form of photographs. “Human observations may be tainted, but photographs of the sun provide evidence that no jury could dispute.” While Inuit observational knowledge reflects deep ingenuity and a profound understanding of the climate developed over generations, it is often perceived by mainstream science as subjective and lacking empirical validation. To bridge this gap in perception, integrating this knowledge with material evidence—such as photographs, satellite imagery, or ice cores—solidifies these observations as credible evidence, thereby increasing their influence within scientific discourse and policy-making.
Still from Climate Signals from Svalbard (2024). Photo by Susan Schuppli.
In addressing these tensions, art plays a crucial role in challenging traditional frameworks of knowledge production in climate science by offering alternative narratives and exposing injustices that conventional science may overlook. The framework of science is closely tied to academia and funding, which has a certain type of stakeholders involved in driving their research. Susan’s work, as an artist-researcher operating outside of these frameworks, provides a unique perspective that critiques these systems. Climate Signals from Svalbard (2024) documents the unusual landscapes of technology infrastructure established to support the climate research occurring on the island of Svalbard. By critically examining how these landscapes are transformed by science activities, Schuppli’s film prompts a discussion on the broader implications of such interventions on the natural environment. CAN THE SUN LIE? interrogates why photographic evidence was required for the trial, questioning why climate observations from those deeply familiar with their landscapes—those who should be considered experts—are not trusted on their own. While art cannot produce transformative politics or dismantle entrenched systems, it plays a crucial role in initiating a discourse—a step in the right direction.
The challenges of decolonization aren’t limited to Arctic climate science—it includes the institutions that support it. Columbia University, home to one of the world’s largest ice core collections, maintains sophisticated infrastructure backed by significant financial investment to preserve these materials in sub-zero temperatures, essential for advancing critical climate research. However, amid student protests—particularly the “Decolonize the Curriculum” movement from the late 1960s and the recent “Gaza Solidarity Encampments”—the University administration’s response reflects the difficulties in decolonizing these spaces⁸. The continued unmet demands of the Gaza Solidarity Encampments reflect the resistance from those in power to relinquish their authority or disrupt the system that they benefited from, underscoring the complex challenge of changing the University. Yet, given the urgency of the climate crisis, adopting a decolonial approach in climate science is crucial. This involves recognizing Inuit spaces in the Arctic as centers of climate expertise and important knowledge production, ensuring their influence on climate policy. As Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier once stated, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. These changes are indicative of larger atmospheric shifts we now recognize as the climate crisis
Scientists observing thinning ice in the Arctic, a clear indicator of
rising global temperatures. Photo by Kathryn Hansen.
rising global temperatures. Photo by Kathryn Hansen.
For now, artists like Scuppli will continue to use art to advocate for this non-traditional knowledge. Her works “Ice-Core Media” and CAN THE SUN LIE? examines data and cultural proxies as they mediate between epistemologies, helping the integration of Inuit experiential knowledge with Western data-driven methodologies. However, these Indigenous spaces should be recognized as legitimate hubs of knowledge production—not merely a supplement to material evidence but valid in its own right.
- A paper that helped me in framing these questions of various realms of knowledge was Christine J Walley’s “They Scorn Us Because We Are Uneducated: Knowledge and Power in a Tanzanian Marine Park.”
- Knowledge within Inuit communities stem from their culture which has long depended on the ice to survive and thrive. In this essay I will refer to this as experiential knowledge or Indigenous knowledge, which refers to their understanding of climate and land through intergenerational observations. Sheila Watt-Cloutier’s The Right to be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015) helped me understand the ingenuity of Inuit knowledge.
- A pivotal work that shaped my understanding of the marginalization of Indigenous knowledge within climate science is Susan Schuppli’s “Ice-Core Media”.
- The epistemologies of Arctic climate science and Inuit knowledge represent distinct ways of understanding and interpreting the environment. Arctic climate science is rooted in the scientific method, driven by data collection and experimentation, whereas indigenous knowledge is a holistic method developed through generations living closely with the Arctic environment.
- This essay employs terms like “indigenous knowledge” and “scientific knowledge” for simplicity and ease of understanding. However, this lexicon is problematic, and I do not intend to imply the associations typically linked with these terms. A work that helped shape my understanding on this issue is Arun Agrawel’s “Dismantling the Divide between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge” (Development and Change 26, no. 3 (07, 1995): 413-440.)
- The extraction of ice cores from Arctic glaciers demands intricate infrastructure, a large workforce, and substantial funding. While this process significantly advances our understanding of climate science, its impact on the surrounding landscape and local communities must not be overlooked.
- Material evidence, as it pertains to Susan Schuppli’s work, refers to the objects, substances, or environmental elements that bear witness to conditions or events as it relates to climate or crisis. She uses these materials to connect various perspectives and offer new ways of understanding and addressing environmental issues and social injustices.
- Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi’s “The University and the Camp” was critical in helping me understand the spaces outside of academic institutions in creating knowledge, and decoloniality in universities.
Bibliography
- Agrawal, Arun. "Dismantling the Divide between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge." Development and Change 26, no. 3 (07, 1995): 413-440.
- Ford, James D., and Tristan Pearce. "Travelling and Hunting in a Changing Arctic: Assessing Inuit Vulnerability to Sea Ice Change in Igloolik, Nunavut." Climatic Change 87, no. 3 (2008): 193–213.
- Gearheard, Shari, et al. "It’s Not That Simple: A Collaborative Comparison of Sea Ice Environments, Their Uses, Observed Changes, and Adaptations in Barrow, Alaska, USA, and Clyde River, Nunavut, Canada." Ambio 35, no. 4 (2006): 203–11.
- Hansen, Kathryn. “Arctic Sea Ice Thinning.” NASA, Flickr. Published August 10, 2021.
- Schuppli, Susan. CAN THE SUN LIE?, accessed August 8, 2024,
- Schuppli, Susan. Climate Signals from Svalbard (2024), last modified July 24, 2020, accessed August 8, 2024.
- Schuppli, Susan. “Ice-Core Media” (2020) accessed August 8, 2024.
- Schuppli, Susan. Moving Ice (published 2024; commissioned by BEK - Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts and Sonic Acts, Amsterdam), accessed August 8, 2024.
- Siddiqi, Anooradha Iyer. “The University and the Camp”, Ardeth, 2020, Online since 01 November 2020, accessed August 9, 2024.
- Walley, Christine J. “‘They Scorn Us Because We Are Uneducated’: Knowledge and Power in a Tanzanian Marine Park.” Ethnography 3, no. 3 (2002): 265–98.
- Watson, Sheila. The Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Fight to Protect the Arctic and Save the Planet from Climate Change. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
Essay written in reflection of Susan Schuppli’s lecture and film screening with GSAPP’s AAD Arguments Lecture Series in 2024. Instructor: Ranjani Srinivasan