“Warm Salutations” is an interdisciplinary project that began in October 2022 and explores the connection between the residents of Charleston and the Polar Arctic ice. I record messages of salutations to the melting ice from residents affected by climate change: warming temperatures, rising sea-levels, and loss of knowns ways of living. I asked each person, ages ranging 4 to 91, to give me a message to deliver to the glaciers around of Svalbard, the Northernmost landmass in the world. It was a simple question for me to ask, and a difficult answer to give. . .

Each of the 100+ participants in this project have considered their position as the center of consciousness within a world that is changing very quickly into a landscape of the unknown.

Messages have been sent in the form of written words, videos/audio recordings, original musical compositions, songs, poems, pictures, dances, and more.

This serves as a living time capsule for the life experiences that are treasured, and to consider what may be lost with change. It continues collecting messages indefinitely. and will includes a web-based media archive that will be free to all.

This project was funded in part by the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs and the City of North Charleston Cultural Arts Program through their joint administration of the Lowcountry Quarterly Arts Grant Program and the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of SC.

Special thanks to The Cooper School, Perri Lynch Howard, Frankie Carino, Mitchell Hughes, and with deep thanks to individuals who have given trust to this project.