Over the last month, Casey station members have tapped into their creativity and shown their appreciation of the arts.
Firstly, we played some hits from the Antarctic Film Festival, showcasing several past entries from the annual 48-hour filmmaking spree that is a traditional intracontinental competition for winterers. Several films made by past Casey expeditioners were featured, as well as entries from other stations – we were curious to see different station crews and their creative styles.
The next weekend, we hosted an Art Show featuring pieces our expedition members have crafted this past winter and summer.
Jose’s projects included intricately milled metal vehicle replicas inside bottles and a metal rose inside a glass case in the style of Beauty and the Beast. Val produced colourful acrylic paintings of scenery from Davis station. There were military paintings and sketches from Deano, a wooden boat handcrafted and painted by Johan, photos of Antarctic wildlife by Barry, copper-crafted roses by Terry, copper and wood jewellery by Mick, Gav and Anne, and painted drones by Kasey. And from our Christmas festivities just past, one of our station members chose to share a beautifully crafted anonymous Christmas card he received.
A Summer Photo Contest has been running for the past few months, with entrants printing out their best snaps of life and scenery in Antarctica and displaying them on the wall in the lower wallow. This weekend the judges convened to award gold, silver and bronze medals (that is, coloured sticky notes with rankings written on them) in seven different categories, from the inspiring 'Antarctic Spirit' to the more comical 'Cringeworthy'.
Performing arts got a showcase as well as we burst onto stage to unleash a different sort of creativity: a Karaoke night titled Murder Your Favourite Song. Much singing and dancing ensued!
Finally, last Sunday we completed the KBA Challenge, a 10K race in memory of our friends Bob, Mike and Perry from Kenn Borek Air, our chartered intracontinental flight service. All seven members of KBA currently at Casey participated – the moment the event was on, they were the first to get their skis stowed away ready. The event got going with racers storming down the 8 m wide freshly groomed track on foot, on bikes and on skis. No stacks this time around in perfect soft snow, but the struggle was real!
Bob, Perry and Mike would have been looking down upon us and laughing.
- Casey Social Committee
