Paul Berger

Rise

Photographic print on canvas

Helle and I often say that every time we're out, we see something we've never seen before; we've seen bubbles before, but never like this. These Lake Superior ice bubbles provide small lenses, focusing the trails made by dissolved oxygen precipitating out as the water froze. At least, that's what I think is happening! In another life, I might have been a glaciologist, but in this one, it's enough for me to watch and listen to Lake Superior - especially its ice.

Geometries

​Photographic print on canvas

Sometimes, Lake Superior creates thin sheets of ice and then tips them on edge or jumbles them. In this piece, there are two vertical sheets, one behind the other. With polarized sunglasses or a polarizing filter on the camera, and with the light coming from a particular angle, diffraction creates many colours. Looking from a different angle, or spinning the polarizing filter, changes the colours, which follow patterns within the ice that are usually invisible. It's a bit like magic.

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Artist Bio

Paul Berger is a climate activist in Thunder Bay with CUSP-Citizens United for a Sustainable Planet. He teaches climate change education to BEd and MEd students as an associate professor at Lakehead University and spends as much time as he can on Lake Superior in all seasons - almost always with a camera. pberger@lakeheadu.ca