Alongside the better-known and more popular trade routes — such as those for spices or other essential goods — the world of the past also trafficked ice through what was called the “frozen water trade.” This film tells the story of how merchants attempted to cool the tropics by transporting natural ice extracted from glaciers and frozen lakes to colonial elites in various parts of the world, sometimes relying on enslaved labour. Moving Ice brings back these little-known accounts as a first chapter of modern melting, establishing connections with the present, in which other anthropogenic factors accelerate climate change on our planet.

Susan Schuppli, a UK-based researcher and artist, studies and examines material evidence, gathering elements from contexts of war and conflict as well as environmental disasters and climate change. Schuppli is Professor and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she is also an associate artist-researcher. She is likewise Chair of the Board of the renowned research group Forensic Architecture.

Moving Ice was commissioned by BEK (Norway) and Sonic Acts (Netherlands), within the framework of the Re-Imagine Europe network, of which Festival Semibreve is also a member.