Vancouver artist Desirée Patterson channels glaciers into immersive installation

Vancouver artist Desirée Patterson has created a monumental immersive textile installation that surrounds visitors in the topography of glacial landscapes—complete with the sound of ice melting.

At the centre of her new exhibition, opening July 11 at The Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford, is "Still in Place," a 15-metre-wide suspended sculpture Patterson spent over a year developing. "I'm trying to make people feel like they're walking into a glacial topography," she says. "You're surrounded by recession. The sound is ice melting. You're immersed within this landform."

The work began on Place Glacier near Pemberton, where Patterson used a 200-year-old photographic process called cyanotype—treating large cotton panels with light-sensitive chemistry and exposing them in remote alpine environments. Many of the panels were created directly on Place Glacier during a multi-day field expedition with glaciologist Dr. Brian Menounos. Materials had to be flown in by helicopter alongside scientific equipment; every step required careful logistical planning.

Patterson created 3,500 square feet of fabric—more than she ultimately needed. The resulting patchwork combines panels created on glaciers across the world, including British Columbia's Athabasca Glacier and high-altitude ice fields in Colombia's Andes. As meltwater flowed across the treated fabric, it left branching blue patterns recording fleeting moments of glacial change. Although each panel was created at a different location and time, together they form a cohesive landscape. "When you walk underneath, you're surrounded by blue," Patterson says. "The light comes through the fabric and it feels almost like being inside a cave of ice."

The exhibition is the culmination of Patterson's tenure as artist-in-residence for Canada's contribution to the United Nations' International Year of Glaciers Preservation. Over the past 12 months, she collaborated with glaciologists, wildfire researchers, and hydrologists, joining scientific field expeditions and transforming their data into large-scale contemporary artworks. In March, she presented a preview during World Day for Glaciers celebrations at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Other installations throughout the exhibition draw upon decades of glacier photography, wildfire ecology research, and climate modelling. One room features a giant lenticular work based on photographs from the Mountain Legacy Project, allowing viewers to see more than a century of glacial retreat as they move around the piece. Another incorporates recordings of birds returning to forests after wildfire. Elsewhere, visitors encounter enlarged images of ice cores, scientific equations, and video installations exploring the relationship between fire, water, and ice.

The exhibition runs through March 20, 2027.