Jagged rocks sculpted by volcanism, ice and meltwater form a gigantic gateway of basalt in Ragnar Axelsson’s photograph Kötlujökull Melt, Iceland. In the middle of the picture stands a single person as a tiny staffage figure in front of the primeval-looking nature. With the impressive shot from 2021, the Icelandic photographer points to the change that the landscape of his home island is undergoing as a result of global warming: mountain formations that were hidden under the glacial ice for thousands of years are now exposed in Iceland.
But Axelsson, who also calls himself “RAX” and who has traveled the world as a photojournalist, is interested far beyond Iceland’s borders in the dramatic changes in Arctic habitats. “Where the World is Melting” is the name of the photographer’s first retrospective, which can be seen from today in the Phoxxi in the Deichtorhallen in cooperation with the Munich Art Foyer, Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung.
Born near Reykjavik in 1958, the artist has been photographing people, animals and landscapes in Greenland, the Faroe Islands, northern Scandinavia and Siberia for 40 years. With his always black-and-white, gritty and atmospherically dense works, he documents the consequences of climate change for the farmers, fishermen and hunters who live on the fringes of the habitable world. “For me it’s like giving them a voice,” says the photographer of the people of the north who step in front of his camera.
There is, for example, an Icelandic farmer whose snow-white hair and beard is tugged in the wind while foaming waves pound the black lava sand beach in the background. There is a Greenlandic sealer preparing to hunt at the ice edge, or a Siberian reindeer herder who has just lassoed a reindeer. In his pictures, Axelsson tells of traditional ways of life that are slowly disappearing – just like the ancient knowledge of the laws of nature that has been passed on over many generations. Because the approximately 400,000 people who live as indigenous communities in the extreme north today are dependent on a reliable rhythm of the seasons.
For the Greenlandic Inuit, the Scandinavian Sami or the Siberian Nenets, the warming is turning everything we have known upside down: the ice can no longer be reliably navigated for hunting with dog sleds and the recently ice-free rivers are no longer used as roads and supply routes. The migration of animals and the cycles of plants become unpredictable. In addition, melting permafrost and eroding coasts endanger entire settlements. “It has never been more important than now to document the lives of people and the changes they are going through in the Arctic in words and pictures so that the whole world can see what is happening,” explains the photographer.
The Icelander tells of the concern about the loss of living space and culture in memorable, iconic shots with an exciting image structure. People and animals often only get a small supporting role, then again they become full-screen protagonists. “When taking photos, I tried to capture people’s facial expressions – but as if I wasn’t there. I don’t stage anything,” says Axelsson. In order to be able to take photos that are as authentic as possible, he seeks the friendship and trust of his models and shares their everyday life.
“Life in the Arctic is not for the faint-hearted,” affirms the artist. Nevertheless, he follows the Icelandic farmers who move through the barren landscape with their flocks of sheep, drives out onto the Arctic Ocean with Inuit fishermen or accompanies hunters in the ice desert. Again and again he also portrays Icelandic horses and above all the sled dogs of Greenland, which he describes as “Heroes of the Arctic”. Axelsson’s documentation becomes more valuable with each passing day, because the eternal ice was yesterday. Scientists assume that Iceland’s glaciers will be gone in 200 years at the latest. For example, Okjökull, which once covered an area of 15 square kilometers, lost its glacier status in 2019. Today only a commemorative plaque reminds of the melted ice masses.
