A National Science Foundation Artist and Writers Grant recipient, artist Lita Albuquerque, has conceived of Stellar Axis: Antarctica, an art expedition to Antarctica and Phase I of a two-part project that will entail a tracing of the stars above the North and South Pole onto the ice at both poles. Albuquerque's international team members, British astronomer Simon Balm, British documentary filmmaker Sophie Pegrum, French Antarctic photographer Jean De Pomereu, and Italian-based French cinematographer Lionel Cousin will be deployed at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica, on the first week of December 2006. They will position ninety-nine blue spheres in alignment to the stars over the South pole onto the Ross Ice Shelf on December 22, 2006. A performance indicating the motion of the stars at the poles will also be filmed. ““By doing a star alignment on the ice at both poles, it engages the whole planet,” says Albuquerque. “I’m interested in creating a mental image of the patterns aligning. In a way, it’s like taking a snapshot of a moment in time when the stars are aligned to the pattern on the ground, so that the ‘picture’ is an accurate picture of not just a planet floating in space, but a planet surrounded by a vast circulatory system of stars of which we are a part.”