In the 1870s a group of prints and books was found on the Arctic island of Nova Zembla. Abandoned there in the 1590s, over time they had frozen together and become a dense block. In the 1970s a conservator began to separate the decayed sheets, and, where possible, piece together the fragments. This extraordinary project inspired Siân Bowen (Resident Artist in Drawing at the V&A, 2006-8) to make a series of drawings on the theme of historical traces, damage and creativity.

Having examined these paper fragments, Bowen travelled to Nova Zembla across the Barents Sea, filming the sea ice via a slightly convex black mirror attached to the side of the boat. Video stills chart the shifting patterns of the fragmented ice. Bowen created the ‘Silent Freeze’ drawings in response to these images.

The ‘Silent Freeze’ drawings were made in three sets. The first was created with pinpricks piercing the paper from back to front. The paper is watermarked with script transcribed from a 15th century navigational guide that was found on Nova Zembla. The second set was created with pinpricks going inwards. The third set was created with tarnished silver dust pushed through pin-pricked, watermarked paper.

This drawing is from the second set; it was presented by the artist with an example each from the first and third sets (E.284-2013 and E.286-2013).