Giulia Foscari / UNLESS launch Antarctic Resolution, a multi-disciplinary project co-authored by the world’s leading experts on the Antarctic, at the Biennale Architettura 2021.
Antarctic Resolution is te first publication on the Antarctic that attempts to offer a multidisciplinary high-resolution image of our southernmost continent. Edited by Giulia Foscari/UNLESS, and co-authored by 150 polar leading experts, the volume presents the collective research in the form of authored texts, photographic essays, and data-based visual portfolios. Articulated in three main sections – focussing on geopolitics, science, and architecture – the publication includes the first census of Antarctic architectures, 
conceive as an open access archive which fosters a reduction of the contaminating anthropogenic footprint on the continent.
Title: Antarctic Resolution
Editor: Giulia Foscari / UNLESS
Authors: 150 interdisciplinary specialists
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Editorial assistant: Federica Zambeletti
Design: Giulia Foscari / UNLESS with Integral Lars Müller
Printing: Grafiche Antiga, Italy
20 × 26.4 cm, 1000 pages
Hardcover, English
2021, ISBN 978-3-03778-640-6
Accounting for approximately 10% of the land mass of Planet Earth, Antarctica – first theorised by the ancient Greeks yet only ‘discovered’ after the Industrial Revolution – is a Global Commons we collectively neglect. Far from being a pristine natural landscape, the continent is a contested territory which conceals not only resources that might prove irresistible in a world with ever-increasing population growth but also scientific data crucial to inform future environmental policies. The kilometres-thick stratum of ice that has accumulated on its bedrock for millions of years, equivalent to around 70% of the fresh water on our planet, represents both an indispensable resource for human survival and the greatest menace to global coastal settlements threatened by the rise in sea levels induced by anthropogenic global warming.
Mindful that no single discipline could synthesise the complexity of the natural and political forces concealed in 26 quadrillion tons of ice, on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the first recorded sighting of Antarctica, Giulia Foscari / UNLESS invited over 200 specialists from the fields of architecture, biology, chemistry, climate science, engineering, geography, history, law, literature, logistics, medicine, physics, political science, sociology, technology, and the visual arts to join in a collective effort to produce the first holistic body of research on the Antarctic.
Antarctic Resolution advocates the rejection of the pixelated view of Antarctica offered to us by Big Data companies and urges the construction of a high-resolution image focusing on the continent’s unique geography, unparalleled scientific potential, contemporary geopolitical significance, experimental governance system, and extreme inhabitation model.The result of such collaborative research, Antarctic Resolution, is premiered at “How will we live together?”, 17th Architecture Venice Biennale directed by Hashim Sarkis. Exhibited within the Central Pavilion of the Giardini della Biennale within the “Across Borders” section, the publication is presented alongside the symbolic historic snow goggles worn by Captain Scott while man-hauling across the Antarctic during the Heroic Age and the pioneering Antarctic Suit designed by D-Air Lab in collaboration with UNLESS as a portable environment which enables survival on the hostile white desert while promoting the reduction of the contaminating anthropogenic footprint on the continent. The collective call for action is amplified, within the exhibition, by the alarming soundscape produced by Arcangelo Sassolino’s 250 times per second, a performative installation informed by scientific data provided by glaciologist David Vaughan from the British Antarctic Survey, that violently announces the accelerated thinning of the cryosphere and rise in global sea level.
Learning from Antarctica’s spirit of cooperation, built upon the total reliance on one another to survive, with Antarctic Resolution UNLESS aspires to launch a platform, an agency for change, in which planetary citizens can engage in a coordinated and unanimous effort – independent of nation – to shape the future of Antarctica, and, in turn, of our planet.
With contributions by Doaa Abdel-Motaal, Conrad Anker, Ryan Ashworth, Francesco Bandarin, Carlo Barbante, James N. Barnes, Thomas Barningham, Carlo Baroni, Susan Barr, Elisa Bergami, Marcelo Bernal, Anne-Marie Brady, Ralf Brauner, Cassandra M. Brooks, Shaun T. Brooks, Hugh Broughton, Bert Bücking, David Burrows, Sol Camacho, Sanjay Chaturverdi, Swhadheet Chaturvedi, Christy Collis, Peter Convey, Geoff Cooper, Gabriele Coppi, Ilaria Corsi, Lino Dainese, Klaus Dodds, Julian Dowdeswell, Juan Du, Graeme Eagles, Tess Egan, Alexey Ekaykin, Fausto Ferraccioli, Joe Ferraro, James Rodger Fleming, Adrian Fox, William Fox, Bob Frame, Peter Fretwell, Jacopo Gabrielli, Hartwig Gernandt, Andrew Gerrard, Neil Gilbert, Karsten Gohl, Francis Halzen, Kael Hanson, Ursula Harris, Judith Hauck, Robert Headland, Beth Healey, Alan D. Hemmings, Adrian Howkins, Kevin A. Hughes, Andrew T. Hynous, Julia Jabour, Stéphanie Jenouvrier, Solan Jensen, Andrea Kavanaugh, Daniel Kiss, Georg Kleinschmidt, Alexander Klepikov, Peter Landschützer, Louis John Lanzerotti, Elizabeth Leane, Sang-Lem Lee, Inti Ligabue, Daniela Liggett, Bryan Lintott, Vladimir Y. Lipenkov, Cornelia Lüdecke, Arturo Lyon, James Madsen, Craig McCormack, Tony McGlory, Hans-Jürgen Meyer, Christel Misund-Domaas, Nicholas de Monchaux, Chiara Montanari, Michael Morrison, Teasel Muir-Harmony, John Nelson, Camilla Nichol, Miranda Nieboer, Anne Noble, Dirk Notz, Shaun O’Boyle, Madeleine O’Keefe, Nouschka Očenášek, Lawrence A. Palinkas, Scott Parazynski, Carolina Passos, Michael Pearson, Francesco Pellegrino, Rick Petersen, Katherina Petrou, Andrea Piñones, Jean-Yves Pirlot, Ceisha Poirot, Jean de Pomereu, Alexandre Ponomarev, Brian Rauch, Ron Roberts, Donald R. Rothwell, Juan Francisco Salazar, Jean-Baptiste Sallée, Sir Philippe Samyn, Bojan Šavrič, Mirko Scheinert, Didier Schmitt, Thomas Schramm, Daniel Schubert, Karen Nadine Scott, Cara Seitchek, Maria Ximena Senatore, Jonathan Shanklin, Yuri Shibaev, Tim Stephens, Pavel G. Talalay, Steve Theno, Paul Thur, Philip Trathan, David Vaughan, Emerson Vidigal, Claudio Willams, Gary Wilson and Angela Wright.