Tracing the Midnight Sun: Jessica MacMillan returns to Artica Svalbard
Artica Svalbard is pleased to welcome back artist Jessica MacMillan for a second residency in Longyearbyen.
Jessica MacMillan is an artist and amateur astronomer based in Oslo whose practice spans sculpture, installation, 3D animation, and light. Her work explores astronomy, planetary science, and deep time through ordinary found objects and optical instruments, creating experiences that connect everyday life with the vast cosmic scales that surround us.
MacMillan has exhibited throughout Norway and internationally, including at the Hamburg Planetarium, Solobservatoriet (Harestua Solar Observatory), Kyoto Art Center, MUNCH, Kunstnernes Hus, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, and numerous other venues. She has previously undertaken residencies in Japan, Finland, Iceland, and Svalbard, including a stay at the Ny-Ålesund Research Station.
This residency marks a return to Artica Svalbard following her first stay in 2021, which was supported through a nomination by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA). During that residency, MacMillan developed Time Line, a large-scale outdoor light artwork that used a high-powered green laser to draw connections between the landscape and the stars during the polar night.
Jessica MacMillan, Insolations (2024)
During her current residency, MacMillan will focus on Insolations, a sculpture project that uses spherical glass lenses to burn the circular path of the midnight sun into wooden bowls. Each bowl becomes a unique record of a single day’s solar radiation, shaped by the latitude where it is made, the movement of the sun, and changing weather conditions. As clouds drift overhead, they create interruptions and variations in the burn, producing marks that are both precise and unpredictable.
By bringing together sunlight, glass, wood, and time, Insolations transforms natural forces into a form of drawing, creating tangible records of the relationship between place, season, and the movement of the Earth through space.