The Hardship is an installation of sculpture and video, produced from footage on Segall’s venture to the Arctic. A custom copper cold-plate, made from salvaged freezer components, hangs as a painting. The video component is a slow sequence of character portraits and pastoral landscape. Jessica is wearing a Goya-themed survival suit, made in collaboration with costume designer Avery Jennings. The dress is fabricated from arctic-grade materials and conductive fabrics, e.g. the veil is made of fine conductive metals. Circuitry in the dress absorbs power from the sun, which only rises one hour a day. Her character reclines on icebergs and walks to the top of the Global Seed Vault as if a plank to witness the world from a Friedrich-esque point of observation. The emptied vessel of the scrapped freezer supports the audio element of the installation.

Special thanks to Sculpture Space, Earthbound Moon, the l.i.e.p. travel grant and The Arctic Circle
Sound design: Cheryl E. Leonard
Costume design: Avery Jennings
Videography: Saeed Farouky and Jessica Segall

Jessica Segall is an American artist and musician living in New York City. Her work has been exhibited at the International Syposium for Electronic Art, The Havana Bienal, The National Gallery of Indonesia, The Queens Museum of Art, The Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery and the The Aldrich Museum. Jessica is the recipient of an Art Matters grant, the l.i.a.e.p. Travel Grant, The Gatsby Charitable Foundation Fund, and an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park. She has attended artist residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Skowhegan, Sculpture Space, Land Art Mongolia, The Arctic Circle and Künstledorf Schöppingen. Jessica is a graduate of Bard College and received her MFA from Columbia University.