On June 14, 2022 I stood in front of mighty Svínafellsjökull, an outlet glacier of Vatnajökull, the largest ice cap in Europe. It is located 320 kilometres (199 miles) away from Reykjavík. The scene was breathtaking to say the least. 

A number of emotions swept over me the very moment my eyes lay on the glacier. First, it was a feeling of awe. I stood in silence for quite some time trying to take it all in. Looking at the glacier and reading about its retreating, I caught myself thinking of the relationship between the glacier and human race, as well as the role we play in shaping current and future landscapes.

According to Lifandi kennslustofa í loftslagsbreytingum / A natural laboratory to study climate change, "one-tenth of Iceland is covered by glaciers. Due to the warming climate, they are currently retreating rapidly, and some comparatively small glaciers have mostly disappeared during the last decade. The same applies to glaciers elsewhere on Earth. Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in Iceland, with an area of ca. 7800 km2, and the largest ice cap in Europe outside the Arctic."

On that very day, June 14, 2022 I got an idea to start working on a multidisciplinary project, "Retreating". The project is expanding and this video is to give an audience a sense of what it is like to stand in front of a wonder of nature that is retreating in front of one's very own eyes. The sound of melting ice is still haunting me today. 

The sound used in the video is not the actual audio of the melting glacier, but rather a recreation of my memory from that very memorable day and a memory I shared with the audience at Jepson Center in Savannah during my artist talk with curator Erin Dunn on May 23, 2023.