ANNE LYDIAT

Cluster Photography & Print Exhibitor | 2025

Anne Lydiat is a British artist based on the southeast coast of England. Her background in BA and MA Fine Art allowed her creative freedom and, then as now, her work has been concept-driven rather than aligned with any specific discipline. After graduating, Lydiat was appointed the first female Henry Moore Fellow, culminating in her solo exhibition Waiting for the Seventh Wave.

In 2002, she moved aboard a converted trading vessel moored on the River Thames. This fluvial existence—constantly suspended in and surrounded by water—became central to her artistic practice. Lydiat developed an interest in women’s maritime history, challenging the perception of the ship as a space traditionally occupied by men. Upon discovering the pioneering voyages of American Arctic explorer Louise Arner Boyd, Lydiat was awarded a Library Research Fellowship at the Louise A. Boyd Archive in the USA.

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In 2018, Lydiat led an Arctic expedition to Louise Boyd Land in northeast Greenland, where she rephotographed locations that Boyd had originally documented some eighty years earlier.

In recognition of the significance of her expeditions, Lydiat was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 2024 and exhibited her photographs, film, and catalogue from her 2018 expedition in a show entitled WAKE.

IMMUTABILITY – the state of not changing

Voyages to Greenland have shaped Anne Lydiat’s photographic practice, serving as both inspiration and subject matter. She was awestruck by the immensity of the icebergs she encountered—vast fragments calved from glaciers and ice sheets during the summer months, drifting southward along the coast. Many were grounded, some frozen in ice, while others moved with ocean currents, destined to melt and disappear over time.

For the original series of artworks, Of Mutability, Lydiat selected digital colour photographs of Arctic icebergs from her 2016 voyage around Scoresby Sund, Greenland. The images were then converted to black and white and printed onto poster paper using low-grade inks, guaranteed to fade and disappear over time. Some prints were displayed indoors behind glass, where they were gradually bleached by the sun, while others were hung outside, left exposed to the elements for several weeks.

Lydiat treated these experimental photographic images as objects, subjecting them—like the icebergs themselves—to the vagaries of climate. The faded, dematerialised images have now been ‘freeze-framed’ and reprinted using high-quality inks and paper, permanently suspending the moment of irreversible change.