“Antarctica: convergence and compilations”
Edwina Cooper
12 July → 16 Aug 2025
Window

On a background of deep blue squares with white intersections an organic layering of sheer crinkled fabric sits in the middle of the frame. There is some additional texture created by beads around the edges of the material. On the right there are more squares of a muted blue tone with white text and photographs.
Edwina Cooper, 'Antarctica: convergence and compilations', 2025, installation view, West Space Window, Collingwood Yards. Photography by Janelle Low.

Antarctica: convergence and compilations is a new project by Edwina Cooper for the West Space Window.

Antarctica: convergence and compilations shares a record of the artist's amassing anecdotal and lived experience based research into the changing Antarctic climate and its impact on the continent of Australia.

Antarctica: convergence and compilations delves into our relationship with the intangible edge places and peripheries where the impacts of the climate crisis are magnified. With a specific interest in the Antarctic—its fluid and unfixable glacial and sea ice boundaries—this iterative project seeks to bring knowledge of the foreign and inhospitable environment ashore through the work of scientists and technicians working in this field.

The Window offers a view into the artist’s studio, where Cooper's accumulating research sits alongside a hand-stitched map tracing Antarctica’s reported sea ice boundary. Correct at the time stitching started, the map makes a futile attempt at pinning down Antarctica’s fragile boundary.

Antarctica: convergence and complications is supported by CreateSA. West Space Window is supported by the City of Yarra through their Annual Grants program. Photographs supplied courtesy of Anton Rocconi and Tess Chapman. Graph of Antarctic Sea Ice Extent provided courtesy of the Australian Antarctic Division.

Program

Artist Talk, Fri 1 August, 6pm

Hear from Edwina Cooper on her year-long research project into the ways the climate crisis is impacting Antarctica, and by extension, Australia.

The background of deep blue squares and white intersections holds a number of square muted blue notes with white text. In the bottom left we see a glimpse of the sheer crinkled fabric.
On a background of deep blue squares with white intersections an organic layering of sheer crinkled fabric sits in the middle of the frame. There is some additional texture created by beads around the edges of the material. On the right there are more squares of a muted blue tone with white text and photographs.
A background of deep blue squares with white intersections hosts a number of muted blue squares with white text. There are also two photographs, and a white sheer fabric in the top left corner.
Detail shot of hundred of tiny beads embroidered onto sheer crinkled white fabric. The fabric lays on a deep blue background.
A background of deep blue squares with white intersections hosts a number of photographic pieces and square post it notes with white handwritten messages.
A detail shot of layered sheer, crinkled fabric. There are hundreds of tiny white beads fixed in clusters to the fabric.
A detail shot of Edwina Cooper creating the installation. Cooper is hand stitching beads to a sheer white fabric.
A photo fo the window installation in full. The window shows a background of deep blue squares with white intersections. There are many square notes with white text, photographs, and sheer crinkled white fabric displayed against the background.

Edwina Cooper is an artist in Tarntanya/Adelaide whose practice is influenced by her experiences as a sailor, and a continued interest in methods for human experience and interaction with oceanic thresholds. Through embodied research in the field, Cooper investigates human inferiority in the face of oceanic immensity and our resulting attempts at fathoming oceanic and other water spaces through human imposed constructs of measure and control.

Related

The background of deep blue squares and white intersections holds a number of square muted blue notes with white text. In the bottom left we see a glimpse of the sheer crinkled fabric.

Eleanor Scicchitano, Antarctica: convergence and compilations
2025