The Arctic Poppy Chronicles project grew out of Michèle Noach‘s fascination with the fragile Arctic Poppy plant (Papaver radicatum) surviving in as hostile an environment as the High Arctic. She collected seeds in Svalbard and Greenland (whilst on expeditions with Cape Farewell) and eventually successfully grew Arctic Poppies in temperate Cornwall, in an long-term experiment to see how they might adapt to a warming climate in the Arctic.

Michèle was invited to be artist-in-residence at The Eden Project in 2008 and progressed her R&D project working throughout with Eden horticulturist supremo Ian Martin. Over the 3+ years of this collaboration, a body of correspondence was collected which Michèle edited into a book, Poppyflakes, that charts their progress with this project. Her exhibition, The Arctic Poppy Chronicles, features 7 large lenticulars (optical 3D works) that document the poppies as they variously germinated, thrived or abruptly died. Interspersed throughout the show are also panels featuring extracts from the book, giving added context and narrative to the images.

The show runs until 9 July 2012 at The Eden Project.