Join us at a lecture by James Balog, returning A. D. White Professor-at-Large, to mark the opening of the Cornell University Library exhibition Rivers of Ice: Three Centuries of Glacial Science. The talk will be followed by a reception in Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, at 5:30 p.m.

In 2007, photographer James Balog founded the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) to create a sustained visual record of receding glaciers, while offering his artistic response to our rapidly changing planet. Combining photography with engineering and scientific collaboration, the project deployed networks of specially designed time-lapse cameras at glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, and the Himalayas. Operating through years of extreme weather, these cameras captured millions of images documenting the advance, retreat, and occasional collapse of ice, producing one of the most extensive visual records of glacier change ever assembled.

Rather than relying on single dramatic photographs, the Extreme Ice Survey reveals change through sequence. By compressing months and years into minutes, its time-lapse imagery makes visible processes that ordinarily unfold too slowly for direct human perception. The project has become one of the most influential visual archives of glacier change, serving scientists, educators, museums, and the public alike while shaping contemporary understanding of the effects of climate change.

This exhibition is funded through the generous support of the Stephen E. ’59 and Evalyn Edwards ’60 Milman Exhibition Fund and the Richard N. Sukenik Fund for Excellence in Photography in Cornell University Library with additional contributions from the Andrew D. White Professors-at-Large Program.

This is a hybrid event; the livestream can be accessed at: https://cornell.zoom.us/j/98441775096?pwd=eSsrhxmnasnc6ddCBJB4EN25LKfPlx.1.