2025 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellow :: Dr Polly Stanton

Dr Polly Stanton is an artist and filmmaker. Her films and installations focus on contested sites and extractive zones, presenting landscape as a politically charged field of negotiation, entangled with history, technology and capital.

Polly documented and recorded the unique rhythms and dynamics of Antarctica’s remote landscapes and settlements through sound and moving image, creating a new large-scale audiovisual work and accompanying publication.

“I know for sure that travelling to Antarctica will push how I work both technically and creatively in such an extreme environment. I’m sure it won’t be easy, but I know it will be a life changing experience.”
— Polly Stanton

2025 Australian Antarctic Arts Fellow Polly Stanton, photograph Paul Mylecharane

2023 Arts Fellow Leila Jeffreys also traveled with Polly to Casey station in Antarctica in November 2025.

Leila is a contemporary artist working across photography, moving image and installation. She is best known for images of birds, photographed at human scale, that explore and subvert the conventions of portraiture.

Leila is researching and photograph Antarctic birdlife for her forthcoming book Seabird – to be published by Thames & Hudson – with exhibitions of the work planned for Sydney and London. Her work is featured in two recently released Thames & Hudson photography titles, Aviary and Exposure.

2023 Arts Fellow Leila Jeffreys, photograph Simon Davidson

“I hope to bring audiences closer to seabirds…not just as scientific subjects, but as sentient beings that reflect back something profound about ourselves and the world we share with them.”
— Lelia Jeffreys

The Arts Fellowship is supported by the Australian Antarctic Division, of the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). The Arts Fellowship connects Australians with Antarctica and supports Australia’s implementation of the Antarctic Strategy and 20 Year Action Plan.

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