Endurance

Endurance is made from footage shot by documentarian Frank Hurley during Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to the South Pole on the ship Endurance. A 10-minute sequence from the film is projected onto my front tooth and while the film plays, I try to smile without losing composure. This piece is exhibited as a large projection where my mouth appears about eight feet wide; when shown at this scale, the film playing on the tooth is legible. The sounds of my involuntary and increasingly distressed breathing and my slurping, drooling mouth accompany the footage of Endurance breaking apart, crushed by the Antarctic sea ice.