For readers
of Terra nova
The history of Antarctic exploration features extraordinary photographic records. Expedition photographers like Shackleton's Francis Hurley and Scott's Herbert Ponting made the most of the continent's stark tones. Here's just a small sample of photographs from Scott's 1910-1913 expedition.
At the same time when Scott was exploring Antarctica, the suffrage movement was fighting for women's right to vote, back in London. In these few photos from the movement, you can see what extremes the women went through, fighting not at the end of the earth, but right at home.
In Terra Nova, Viola devises a photography project working with the hunger strikers of the suffrage movement, to turn classic paintings of the female nude into images of women's power. Here are some of the paintings she attempts to undermine with her photographs.
Antarctica, Suffrage, and More
Scott at his desk in the hut at Cape Evans (photo by Herbert Ponting)
Oates spoke the famous line: "I am going outside and may be some time." (photo by Herbert Ponting)
photo by Herbert Ponting
Scott at his desk in the hut at Cape Evans (photo by Herbert Ponting)
Lady Constance Lytton is the inspiration for the character of Abigail who attempts to carve "votes for women" on her chest and face.
the famous suffrage leader in her Holloway Prison uniform
Lady Constance Lytton is the inspiration for the character of Abigail who attempts to carve "votes for women" on her chest and face.
For Readers
of the Clover House
Patras and Memory: How I Chose the Setting for The Clover House
Patras, Greece, is not the kind of city people choose to go to. Its architecture is dominated by boxy apartment buildings; its streets form a maze of one-way routes seemingly designed to prevent motion; its colonnaded sidewalks are rendered impassable by serried ranks of parked motorcycles. People transit through Patras, catching the ferry that will take them to Brindisi or Ancona or the Ionian Islands, or the train or bus that will take them to Athens. Patras is secondary to these other places, a placeholder, really. Just somewhere you have to sit for a few hours while you wait to leave.
But if you look closely, past the satellite dishes and the antennas and the graceless apartment buildings of rebar and cement, you can see the city it used to be before the war, with its neoclassical . . .[read more]
Inspirations
One of the Carnival floats for the daytime grand parade in Patras, Greece.
Two Carnivalgoers ride a float during the Patras parade.
A flare lights the night as people watch the Patras Carnival parade from a balcony.
An inspiration for The Clover House.
An inspiration for The Clover House.
My grandparents and other relatives, an inspiration for The Clover House.