Hyperborea presents three chapters of Siberian photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva’s long-term project focused on the remote land and people of the Russian Arctic. This exhibition includes a selection of previously unseen images from Weatherman (2013), Dikson (2019-2020), and Chukotka (2019-2020), and a special presentation of Arbugaeva’s new short documentary film Haulout (2022).
Arbugaeva (b.1985) grew up in the secluded port city Tiksi on the shore of the Laptev Sea, Russia, and although now based in London, remains deeply connected to her birthplace. Her approach combines documentary and narrative styles to create a distinctive visual iconography rooted in real experience but resonant with fable, myth and romanticism.
Weather Man, the first chapter of Arbugaeva’s Arctic Stories, documents the life of Slava, a dedicated station-master living in solitude in a remote meteorological post in the far north. In 2018-19, supported by a National Geographic Society Storytelling Fellowship, Arbugaeva returned to the region to document further outposts. This presentation of Hyperborea features images made during that time, from Dikson, a now derelict ghostly town that yielded the tremendous spectacle of the aurora borealis during Arbugaeva’s stay there; and the far eastern region of Chukotka, home to the Chukchi community, who still maintain the traditions of their ancestors, living off the land and sea with Walrus and whale meat as the main components of their diet. Each group of images reveals both the fragility and resilience of the Arctic land and its inhabitants, illuminating the connections between nature, sky, earth, light and dark and exposing the threats being wrought by environmental change.
Arbugaeva’s most recent project in the Arctic documents its changing landscape through moving image. Haulout (2022), a short film made in collaboration with her brother Maxim Arbugaev, follows a lonely man on the Siberian coast, who is waiting to witness an ancient gathering – one which has been drastically altered by warming seas and rising temperatures. Available to view in the Print Sales Gallery, and via The New Yorker.
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