Ragnar Axelsson – Retrospective

The exhibition ‘Where the World is Melting’ with works by Ragnar Axelsson continues at the PHOXXI – the temporary location of Hamburg’s House of Photography – until June 18, 2023.

Climate change has long been an issue of great concern for Ragnar Axelsson (born in Iceland in 1958). For the past four decades, the acclaimed Leica photographer has documented the dramatic transformation of the landscapes and habitats in the most remote Arctic regions – capturing Inuit hunters in northern Canada and Greenland, farmers and fishermen in Iceland and on the Faroe Islands, as well as the indigenous population of northern Scandinavia and Siberia.

The current showcase at the PHOXXI (the temporary venue of Hamburg’s House of Photography, usually located in the city’s Deichtorhallen exhibition centre) marks the photographer’s first major retrospective. The display of impressive black and white images documents the extraordinary relationships between humans, animals and nature in extreme environmental conditions – and details how these relationships have been altered by the unprecedented challenges of climate change.

Axelsson’s work is based on first-hand accounts by the people he encounters: undeterred by the risks and effort involved, he travels to the most isolated places to spend extended periods of time with those living on the very edges of the habitable world – building trust by sharing his protagonists’ often arduous existence. This not only enables him to record unique insights into their daily lives, but also allows him to become an ambassador for their stories and their increasingly endangered way of life.

An extensive portfolio of the Leica photographer’s work can be found in LFI 2/2016.