Visual artist, experienced filmmaker, freelance cameraman, drone pilot, video editor & stills photographer, Adam Sébire lives in the European Arctic (Norway) but works on films from Australia and the Pacific to Greenland, in between producing multi-screen video artworks.

His emphasis is on environmental themes, but with an artistic focus, specialising in creative approaches to documentary video production.

The 4-screen work that premiered at Edinburgh Science Festival in April, AnthropoScene VII: Sikujumaataarpoq (2023) is showing at Fremantle Arts Centre (Western Australia) for the Perth Festival exhibition, “Polarity: Fire & Ice” 10 Feb - 28 Apr 2024. Four-channel video, 53mins.

An immersive audiovisual installation from a remote part of Earth's melting polar circle, where water exists in solid form. Video vignettes linked by West Greenlandic words for this icy environment focus on indigenous humans & non-humans whose existence there is undergoing rapid transformation; its sound design samples ice sounds collected by scientists around the globe. Sikujumaataarpoq is a Kalaallisut word meaning "sea ice formation is delayed”. More →

• AnthropoScene II: Tideline (above) and Roundabout #1 - triptych (below) are on display and for sale, at the new 80:20 Artist Agency which represents Adam in Leichhardt, Sydney (group exhibition 12-4pm, Sat & Sun, 6-28 July 2024).

• AnthropoScene XI: Mammoth is now complete, and juxtaposes two climate engineering (geoengineering) projects underway in our planet’s thawing north:

• AnthropoScene IV: Adrift (∆Asea-ice) is at Beijing Natural History Museum for China Climate Action Week Sep-Oct ‘23. It asks, What if we could witness our own contribution to climate change?

• The poster image for Adrift (a man on the sea ice floe, above) was one of 9 of Adam’s images licensed by ClimateVisuals, an Oxford based charity devoted to climate communication. It’s now available to use freely via a Creative Commons license.

Première of AnthropoScene XII : a work-in-progress

Opening 12 September 2024 at Ilulissat Art Museum, Greenland as a multiscreen video art installation, along with the ‘spark’ kicksledge plus all the equipment used for cleaning the icebergs. (Above: Installation view, Ilulissat Art Museum. Photos: A.Hoffmann/E.Bourne)

• AnthropoScene VIII — Escape Velocity was WINNER of the Royal Geographic Society’s Earth Photo Prize (video award), exhibiting in London, UK, Jun-Aug 2023 before touring England. Finalist for the Nordnorsken Prize; also showing at Perth Festival 2024 (info above).

• Older news: AnthropoScene III: Hellisheidi (below) won 1st prize (£1000) in The Art of Energy exhibition, Centre for Energy Ethics, University of St Andrews, Scotland and is part of Chengdu Biennale, China, Jul-Nov 2023.

• St. Andrews University’s Centre for Energy Ethics released a podcast with Adam discussing his AnthropoScenes series, art, ice, geoengineering and global warming. You can find the podcast at https://allaboutenergy.podbean.com or download above. Interview runs 12’36”-56'45".

• Points of Return is a beautifully-designed online exhibition (launched 2022) featuring artists such as Adam working working with climate change. www.pointsofreturn.org (right).

Feeling the Heat

How do climate scientists, working on the front line of a problem that's invisible to most of us, respond to it as human beings, as citizens of the planet? Feeling the Heat is presented… More →

Finalist in the CMCC Climate Change Communication Award, Nov 2023. Screenings: Premièring at Glasgow Science Centre’s Curious About Our Planet series, during the UN’s COP26 meetings there. Dec 2022 till 31 May 2023 the triple-screen work was exhibited with Adam’s thermographic stills at the Wuhan Biennial, Qintai Art Museum, China, moving to the National Natural History Museum in Beijing from Oct 2023 for China’s Climate Change Awareness Week. It also exhibited May-June 2023, at Umbrella Arts in Concord, MA (USA) as part of the Points of Return group show.

Adam's artistic research & practice centres on a multi-screen form he calls the video polyptych with which he explores the vast spatiotemporal dimensions of the climate crisis – and the cognitive dissonances underlying our responses to it.  Building on his documentary background, he began a PhD at the UNSW Faculty of Art & Design, exploring aesthetic visual representations of anthropogenic global warming.
His PhD work has been exhibited at galleries and institutions including the Deutsches Museum, Max Planck Institute, the South Australian Museum and Perth Festival (WA).
He co-founded the Vertical Film Festival, the world's first competition for 9:16 films, in Australia. From 2019-20 he lectured on vertical visual forms — past, present & future — for Facebook Creative Shop in New York, Singapore, Auckland & Sydney.

CV & Research Interests →

View Art Works →

Solo exhibitions include AnthropoScenes at Galleri Svalbard (2020); In the Heat of the Moment (Accelerator Gallery Sydney, Roads to Nowhere (Head On Photo Festival/Vivid Sydney/Rocks Pop-Up). Group exhibitions include Adrift (∆Asea-ice) (2020 Waterhouse Prize finalist), Tideline at the Northern Norway Art Exhibition (2021 Critics Prizewinner), Hellishei∂i in The Art of Energy (2021, 1st prize), works in the Wuhan & Chengdu Biennales (2022-23), as well as several major works in Polarity, Fremantle Arts Centre, 2024.
Adam has directed over 25 television documentaries; the United Nations in New York premièred his film Echoes Across the Divide, later sold to broadcasters globally. Single-channel artworks include Le Violoncelle (2003), METROpolis, Camel Roundabout (2012) and Breakdown (2018). In 2016 Adam was Artist in Residence at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, in 2018 at Upernavik Museum Greenland, at SÍM Reykjavík (Iceland) 2018-19, in 2019-20 at Galleri Svalbard (Longyearbyen), and at Uummannaq Polar Institute with Nordic-Baltic Mobility Program for Culture funding in 2024.

Adam photographs for a wide range of events, performances and organisations using the Sony A7 IV camera (offering both stills and 4K video coverage if required).

Regular clients include the Royal Flying Doctor Service & Sydney Opera House. Special rates are available for the not-for-profit sector.

Adam was a finalist in the Royal Geographic Society (London) Earth Photo Prize and Australia’s Head On Awards; and was joint 1st prize winner of the Faces of Climate Change award (right). His 6-week solo exhibition Roads to Nowhere formed part of the Head On Photo Festival, Vivid Sydney and The Rocks Pop-Up in central Sydney winter 2012, while his Below the Line series was shown at World Expo, Milan, 2015. His thermography (thermal imaging) work is showcased here.
Most of Adam’s stills are represented by the Stocksy stock photo cooperative.

Contact Adam for enquiries & quotes via this form, or at adamsebire@gmail.com

Special rates for documentary, cultural, educational & non-profit organisations.