77 Below (2009)

Lita Albuquerque had a vision. An internationally renowned artist widely acclaimed for her inspired earth art in the natural landscape, Lita saw a modern art version of ancient astronomical sites, a star map aligned with the rotational axis of Earth consisting of 99 mathematically scaled blue spheres, each to be accurately positioned mirroring a star's location in the sky. In the Antarctic. Despite facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles Lita Albuquerque puts this large scale idea into motion and from one idea, a lifetime of creation and with 3 years of negotiation, Lita finally receives the go ahead from the National Science Foundation, and suddenly had only 6 months to fund-raise, prepare, fabricate and ship the installation, as well as building a team of like-minded visionaries. They finally set out on a rare journey to undertake the installation of this unprecedented artwork. Facing extreme conditions and a three-week window to install, document and De-install the art on the ice, the entire expedition also has to work within a framework of stringent environmental constraints appropriate to the fragile wilderness. Following artist Lita Albuquerque on her quest to harness the ephemeral this film exists as the major record of this temporary monument with global significance shot the coldest, highest, driest and windiest continent on earth.