Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson (b. 1958) has dedicated over forty years to the people, animals and landscapes of remote Arctic regions. At the Edge of the World, now open at The Photographers’ Gallery in London, draws from multiple bodies of work and tells the stories of those living in the northernmost reaches of planet Earth. It also confronts viewers with the effects of climate crisis. “In the regions around the Arctic, change is happening more quickly than anywhere else on Earth,” says Axelsson, who was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet, the foremost award for sustainability and photography, in 2022. “Sea ice and glaciers are melting fast, and small hunting villages are being abandoned as Inuit hunting grounds are no longer sustainable.” Axelsson’s images reveal a world in transition, where once-reliable sea ice now shifts unpredictably, reshaping hunting grounds and upending daily life for communities that depend on it. The message is one of urgency: large-scale environmental changes are already happening.
Axelsson began his career as a journalist, but left the paper to focus on documenting untold stories in Greenland, Iceland and Siberia. A longstanding commitment to these places, and their inhabitants, is evident throughout the exhibition. The photographer immerses himself in Arctic communities for weeks, earning the trust and friendship necessary to portray the unguarded realities of their everyday lives. “I write down what people say and how they feel; I try to capture that in their eyes.” The results are stark and high-contrast, often accompanied by written descriptions that outline the experiences of hunters and herders who are dealing with the effects of thawing tundra and threats to their traditional way of life.
The Photographers’ Gallery presents myriad images of Iceland’s volcanic landscape alongside Axelsson’s documentary shots. The artist’s approach to this subject matter is painterly and abstract, with closely cropped framing denying the viewer a fixed sense of scale or location. These are compositions which draw you in and force you to ask questions. One of the subjects is the Vatnajökull ice cap, the country’s largest and the biggest in Europe by volume. Tragically, though, it has lost more than 15% of its volume during the last century, and all its southern outlet glaciers are retreating and thinning at unprecedented rates.
This exhibition is about storytelling, tradition, preservation and knowledge sharing. It is also a call to action, encouraging us to consider what can be done to preserve these landscapes. After all, they are central to all life on Earth. The way to do so, Axelsson shows, is to raise unheard voices to the forefront, centring stories from the so-called “edges” of the world and making sure they are heard, loud and clear.
The Photographers’ Gallery, London | Until 26 January
thephotographersgallery.org.uk
Image Credits:
1. Ragnar Axelsson Hele-Bobb in Northern Lights, Tiniteqilaaq, Greenland, 1997. Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery.
2. Ragnar Axelsson Landmannalaugar, Iceland, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery.
3. Ragnar Axelsson On the Sea Ice, Kangertittivaq Fjord, Greenland, 2010. Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery.
4. Ragnar Axelsson, Vatnajökull, Iceland, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery.
