Tundra
Svalbard is an archipelago located near the North Pole, in the northernmost inhabited territory in the world. It belongs to the region where there is only tundra. The word comes from the Saami “tūndâr”, which means: “infertile, waste land”. It is not possible to grow crops or plant trees. In addition to this, Svalbard holds the paradox that it is not allowed to give birth or being buried there. When a woman is pregnant, she has to travel to the mainland. The same thing happens when someone dies, as the remains are transferred to the continent.
There are three populations in the archipelago: Longyearbyen (Norwegian), Barentsburg (Russian) and Pyramiden (Russian). They are settlements that originated in the coal mining industry a little more than a century ago.
This has produced a constant rotation of the population, so it is difficult to encounter a specific identity, but rather something more liquid, polyphonic, in continuous movement.
During the three months that I lived there, I tried to discover the relationships between identity and landscape in a small, remote and isolated community like Svalbard.
There entire project revolves around the question: what moves someone to live in polar lands?
“Winter kept us warm, covering
(Coming soon)
Svalbard is an archipelago located near the North Pole, in the northernmost inhabited territory in the world. It belongs to the region where there is only tundra. The word comes from the Saami “tūndâr”, which means: “infertile, waste land”. It is not possible to grow crops or plant trees. In addition to this, Svalbard holds the paradox that it is not allowed to give birth or being buried there. When a woman is pregnant, she has to travel to the mainland. The same thing happens when someone dies, as the remains are transferred to the continent.
There are three populations in the archipelago: Longyearbyen (Norwegian), Barentsburg (Russian) and Pyramiden (Russian). They are settlements that originated in the coal mining industry a little more than a century ago.
This has produced a constant rotation of the population, so it is difficult to encounter a specific identity, but rather something more liquid, polyphonic, in continuous movement.
During the three months that I lived there, I tried to discover the relationships between identity and landscape in a small, remote and isolated community like Svalbard.
There entire project revolves around the question: what moves someone to live in polar lands?
“Winter kept us warm, covering
earth in forgetful snow”
T. S. Eliot. The Waste Land (1922)
(Coming soon)