Laurent Tixador was the first artist in the world to reach the North Pole and received support from exclusively art organisations to finance his expedition: artconnexion, the Centre national des arts plastiques CNAP and the Centre d'art contemporain d'Hérouville Saint Clair WHARF.

Laurent Tixador investigates the great explorations and expeditions of history, in tongue-in-cheek fashion. The artist literally lives out the adventures he re-enacts or invents. He makes his own survival tools, recycles objects found en route to create artworks commemorating each voyage or alternatively uses found objects to make accessories, souvenirs of his leisure moments during the trips. He films, comments and writes down in his logbook the smallest extraordinary events he experiences. He regularly gathers his ‘Club of Adventurous artists’ in art venues to recount their stories and thoughts on the subject.

Laurent Tixador carried out a preparatory stay and then a residency in Ilulissat, Greenland, organised by artconnexion and with the financial support of the AFAA in 2003 and 2004. The project consisted of sailing a radio-controlled iceberg alongside real icebergs, filming and writing a logbook of the events during his stay.

The iceberg model, made of polyester resin, was about sixty centimetres above its waterline. It was designed to be steered remotely, to perform all sorts of routes, approaches and choreographies. Although treated in a fairly realistic way, there was no intention to make this object blend in with the other icebergs. The noise of the engine and the eddies caused by the propeller made this artificial iceberg a necessarily alien object. In the Inuit language, there are more than thirty words for snow. The difference, however small, between the real ice and the fake iceberg could only become more significant in this infinitely nuanced system of designation.