Antarctica and the Southern Ocean – a real fantasy world

Fantasy and science fiction stories often take their readers to worlds far away, to fancy planets and their harsh conditions, to forests with fantastic plants and epic waterfalls, to fabulous animals on land and under water - all created by the imagination of the writer. Actually, we do also have such a fantastic place on real planet Earth – the Southern Ocean surrounding the icy continent Antarctica.

Why not take the many shapes of sea ice and the ice berg alleys of the present and the Antarctic rainforests and rivers of the deep past to tell a fantasy story that inspires? The strongest ocean current on Earth is driven by the “furious fifties” and “screaming sixties”, this place is made to tell stories about! Antarctica and the Southern Ocean are among the least accessible places for humans. The lucky ones who do research there, bring back concerning and astonishing new insights every season. I aim to use the art of storytelling to make the scientist’s knowledge and fascination of this “real fantasy world” accessible and engageable. And I wonder whether words can draw pictures as powerful as a brush or a pen can do.