‘FORTITUDO’ - an art exhibition by Paola Folicaldi Suh

Fortitudo by Italian artist Paola Folicaldi Suh explores Sir Ernest Shackleton’s legendary Antarctic expedition aboard the Endurance (1914-1917). The powerful exhibition features scenes and portraits which vividly reimagine the extraordinary survival story of Shackleton and his crew who left Britain on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition or ‘Endurance Expedition’ in 1914. Although Shackleton failed to complete the first overland crossing of Antarctica via the South Pole, all 26 crew members survived despite two years stranded in the frozen wilderness. Folicaldi Suh’s artworks draw on surviving black and white photographs taken by the expedition’s official photographer Frank Hurley and include oil paintings on sackcloth and mixed media panels combining oil and tempera on tapestry. Each piece is accompanied by quotes from Shackleton’s memoir ‘South’ as well as recollections by Endurance captain Frank Worsley and Aeneas Mackintosh, captain of the support vessel Aurora.