The Blue Lagoon, Svartsengi Geothermal Pumping Station, Iceland

© Virginia Beahan and Laura McPhee

The Blue Lagoon, Svartsengi Geothermal Pumping Station, Iceland

Currently not on view

The Blue Lagoon, Svartsengi Geothermal Pumping Station, Iceland,

1988, printed 1995

Virginia Beahan, American, born 1946
Laura McPhee, born 1958; born New York, NY; active Brookline, MA
1995-384
Inspired by the long tradition of landscape photography that imagined nature as a sublime and spiritual place (see, for example, the print by Timothy O’Sullivan in the adjacent gallery), Beahan and McPhee decided to capture not only nature’s awe-inspiring beauty, but also the relationship between the environment and technology. The water in Iceland’s most popular bathing destination, the Blue Lagoon, is a byproduct of the environmentally friendly Svartsengi Geothermal Pumping Station, which generates heat and energy from seawater.
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More About This Object

Online Collection Sets: Art and Climate: Making the Invisible Visible

Newsletter: Summer 1995

Information

Title
The Blue Lagoon, Svartsengi Geothermal Pumping Station, Iceland
Dates

1988, printed 1995

Maker
Virginia Beahan
Laura McPhee
Medium
Chromogenic print
Dimensions
image: 47.2 x 59.7 cm (18 9/16 x 23 1/2 in.) sheet: 50.8 x 60.9 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of the artists
Object Number
1995-384
Inscription
Inscribed in ink, recto below lower left of image: The Blue Lagoon, Svartsengi Geothermal Pumping Station, Iceland, 1995 Signed in ink, recto below lower right of image: Laura McPhee Virginia Beahan
Culture
American
Type
photographs, color photographs
Subject
industrial buildings, factories, lagoons

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