Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard is the northernmost community and an international scientific settlement with 10 nations, where the entire village is dedicated to climate and environmental research, with one goal in mind: to understand the changes in the Arctic and the impact of climate change on humanity. Here, for more than four months of the year, the Arctic winter is dominated by the darkness of the polar night.
The stories in ‘Stars of the Polar Night’ show the daily life and work in the polar night in this unique outpost of humanity. They tell the story of how, despite the harshest environmental conditions, including blizzards and temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius, scientists search for insights that will contribute significantly to a better understanding of how our planet is changing. It also shows daily life in the village, which can only be reached by boat or plane and where tourists are not allowed to stay.
Svalbard is the epicentre of global warming, where average winter temperatures have risen by 6°-8° Celsius since 1991, according to long-term atmospheric observations by the Alfred Wegener Institute at the French-German Research Base AWIPEV. This increase is much faster than anywhere else on the planet.
Ny-Ålesund was founded in 1917 as a mining settlement from which several historical polar explorations began. In 1963 the mining village was closed and in 1967 it was transformed into a research settlement, led today by the Kings Bay AS, a company owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment and the Norwegian Polar Institute.
The Arctic plays a key role in climate change, and Ny-Ålesund is one of the world’s most important bases for polar research.
The exhibition includes a series of portraits entitled “Women of Arctic Science”. Featuring the life, motivation and work of female role models, the portrait project aims to inspire and empower the next generation of female scientists and explorers.

We are in the golden age of cocaine. Consumption and production have never been higher despite more than 50 years of the ‘War on Drugs’.
For many Europeans and Americans, cocaine is a party drug. For many Latinos, it’s blood and violence, corruption and death.
This reportage delves into the murky depths of the cocaine trade, and investigates the human consequences along the journey, as the drugs travel from the neglected countryside of Colombia till it reaches the craving consumers on a European dancefloor.
Illegal drugs now constitute the world’s largest illegal economy, and in its wake follow corruption, underdevelopment, and extremely high murder rates in South and Central America in particular. Entire societies and nations are destabilized.
Regardless of years of war and endless efforts by the US, Colombia remains at the heart of the business. No country produces more. From here the cocaine travels by land, sea, and air to reach its buyers in mainly the US and Europe, but at every stop the cocaine gives and takes.
In Mexico, a key hub of transit, the lucrative business has fueled narco-cartels so powerful that every level of society now seems entangled, meanwhile their well-equipped armies cause so much terror and instability that millions of people fell forced to migrate.
The international response to the rise of cocaine has so far been a mixture of prohibition, hard punishment, and bloody military campaigns that are raging across the countryside. This has been the strategy since the 1970s – but is it working? From whose perspective? And what are the human consequences behind the world’s favorite party drug?

In 2017, the Rohingya ethnic minority became victims of genocide and were expelled from their lands in Myanmar by the army and their Buddhist neighbors, who until that point had lived alongside them. Within a few days, violence erupted against an entire ethnic group, feared and hated for being Muslim. Their belongings were stolen, and they were systematically and impunitively murdered and raped. A mass exodus ensued towards the relative safety of Bangladesh, where they arrived destitute at what quickly became the largest refugee camp in the world, where they remain to this day.

 

This is Africa’s first national park. Located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is the second national park created in the world after Yellowstone, in 2025 it will be 100 years old. Since 1994, when the Rwandan genocide deposited over 2 million refugees on the parks doorstep, it has been the most dangerous place in the world to practise conservation. Over 250 rangers have died in the course of their duties over the last 14 years. Inside Virunga, the Congolese army fights proxy armies from Rwanda and multiple Mai-Mai militia groups fight to exploit the resource of the park, working with and against them are a ranger force of 600 men who seek to maintain this unique habitat and protect the iconic species inside Virunga. Visionary, sustainable hydroelectric plants created by Virunga now power the region and make Virunga one of the largest employers in eastern Congo, a campaign for hearts and minds that no other park in the world has achieved.

The fate of incarcerated women in Latin America has been largely ignored, unspoken, and veiled from both national and international public consciousness. Imprisonment not only catalyzes crime and violence but also dismantles families, leaving a profound imprint on Latin American society. This is evident in the manner in which criminals are sentenced, crimes are investigated, and minorities are treated— a perpetual, unresolved crisis in the Latin American penitentiary system. The ramifications of a woman’s imprisonment extend far beyond her own life, reverberating through generations.

This photographic exploration documents the often-overlooked struggles of women, as the mainstream media narrative on male incarceration in Latin America frequently neglects the intensified vulnerability of women. The disproportionate consequences of imprisonment on women, who often shoulder the responsibility of being the primary earners for their families, is a pressing issue that calls for immediate attention. For instance, in El Salvador, women are subjected to severe penalties for abortion, with sentences that equate the act to murder and can extend up to thirty years. In Venezuela, the causes for female imprisonment often seep into the political sphere. Furthermore, in Guatemala, women from indigenous communities are frequently denied fair trials due to their lack of Spanish proficiency, further compounding their predicament.

Detention facilities in Latin America serve as a stark reflection of the harrowing experiences endured by incarcerated women. Suspects often languish in these centers, awaiting trial for extended periods—frequently far beyond what is legally permissible. These facilities are sweltering, dimly lit, and critically overcrowded. Inmates have reported instances of extreme violence and torture, including abuse perpetrated by the guards themselves. There is no segregation based on the type or severity of crime committed, and gender separation is virtually non-existent. Transgender detainees face horrific abuse and sexual violence, as their gender identity is disregarded, resulting in their confinement with male detainees.

Many, including the innocent, plead guilty to escape the deplorable conditions of detention centers, hoping for a marginally better life in state prisons. They are convicted of a range of crimes, from abortion and gang membership to drug trafficking and extortion. However, post- conviction, their situation often spirals further into despair. Women become increasingly isolated, their desperate circumstances marked by a reduction in visits and phone calls— privileges that were allowed in the detention center—along with dwindling cell space and food.

Women inmates receive fewer visitors. External support becomes a lifeline to endure such conditions, not only for the crucial emotional sustenance provided by loved ones but also because they play a direct role in the survival of these women. Material support, in the form of food, clothing, and medicine, compensates for the state’s failure to provide for the basic needs of these incarcerated women.

Despite their harrowing circumstances, incarcerated women form remarkable bonds of resistance, friendship, and solidarity. They share everything: food, mattresses, clothes, and tears.
Upon release, these women exit the prison system traumatized and stigmatized, yet the penitentiary system lacks adequate support for their reintegration into society. Bereft of hope,
employment, and a supportive network of friends and family, these women are likely to return to gang life or commit crimes post-release.

I initiated Días Eternos in 2017 to document the causes and repercussions of female imprisonment within Latin American society. My objective is to bring visibility to the issue of female imprisonment, contextualized within specific historical narratives, providing women with a platform to express themselves.

The series ‘Battleground’ documents the endless brutal atrocities of war.

Approaching the frontline, one encounters a solemn landscape that bears witness to the profound impact of war. The aftermath is a haunting tableau of destruction and desolation—crumbling structures, shattered windows, and scarred terrain. Nature itself mourns, with trees carrying shrapnel scars, and once-lush fields now fallow under the weight of military tumult.

The photographs below reveal Ukraine’s territories scarred by shelling and bloody conflicts since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Each image encapsulates a paradoxical beauty and horror, a visual testament to the coexistence of destruction and resilience.

War devastates everything. It cripples human souls and bodies, dismantles buildings and scars the very essence of nature. There are no winners, all that remains are destruction, pain, and suffering. A haunting footprint is left on everything it touches, an indelible mark etched into the fabric of time, reminding us of the collective toll borne by humanity in times of conflict.

Mountainous Adjara is one of the most distinguished regions of Georgia. The traditions and the old ways of life have been preserved to this day in this area. The isolation and alienation of inhabitants of this mountainous area has been an ongoing issue for a long time. Last several decades have been especially difficult for this region.
Difficult social and economic situation in the country has hindered development of this region and integration of its inhabitants with the rest of the country. For years, inhabitants of Adjara could not get complete education, did not have access to proper health care or any other services. Villages often experienced electricity shortages and during harsh winters they were usually cut off from the outside world.
Due to the absence of basic living conditions, many Adjarian villages are now empty. Many families have become eco migrants as they were forced to move to other regions of Georgia or aboard, mostly in Turkey.
Khulo and Ghorjomi Gorge are the highest settlements of Autonomous Republic of Adjara. There are 18 different villages of various sizes in the Gorge. Because of their small population, some of these villages only have elementary schools and high school students have to attend schools in other villages. The roads between these villages are damaged and the infrastructure is faulty. Almost all of the inhabitants of these villages are Muslim. There are mosques in every large village.
The residents of Gorge villages are mostly cattle breeders. Due to the lack of pastures, cattle owners take their herds to the mountains in the summer and stay there till late autumn. Nomadic Adjarians have to move several times a year. But despite this, most of the men still have to work in Turkey holding seasonal jobs for additional income.
Because of this difficult situation this mountainous region with unique traditions and lifestyle is slowly getting empty and this traditions and distinguished lifestyle is being forgotten.

Klavdij Sluban comes from the segregated half of Europe, he is used to fences and to bars. He has even taught photography in prison. In this cycle he visits the East, an East whose people have been set free, like monks released from an enclosed order.
Like his fellow countrymen Klavdij Sluban, who spent his childhood in Livold, Slovenia, belonged to Yugoslavia, a country which ended up being torn apart in the final decade of the century.
The photographer emerges from this region of all-consuming hatred. He tells about those in the East, to those who hardly knew the East existed revealing the shadows that emanate from there. Even the snow is dark, the light a faded white, exiled to the surface.
The photographer walks through the abandoned cities of the East. Where have all the inhabitants gone? Is anyone left hidden in the mist, is there some poor wretch on the run or with their back to the wall. The photographer presses on, in search of people, beyond Europe, advancing into Asia, Russia, Mongolia, China, on the Trans-Siberian Railway, but he finds no areas of dense population. Everywhere it is the geography that dominates, making human beings insignificant.
The journey of the photographer, rather than leading him to an East that is conceived as time past, opens a crack in the wall of time and takes him into the future. He visits the East as if he were a pilgrim consulting an oracle. From it he receives visions veiled in smoke and mist: the East is a defeated future, a time yet to come for humanity, stretched out and flexing.
And the future depicted here in photographic images is hard, hard to listen to. From the noisiest century of all, the greatest producer of mechanical clatter, we shall pass into a world of silence. The future will be accompanied by the silence of those who have been struck dumb. In these photographs, the use of black and white is like the fitting of a silencer to the barrel of a gun. The photographer is a marksman.
The photographer is homesick for the native snow of his childhood, the snow that used to blanket his corner of the world. But here it has become a white leprosy; it doesn’t coat the ground but eats away at it. Its silence is oppressive. To give subjects stillness a longer exposure is required. Stillness is the state of grace of a messianic moment, not the thrill of a divine visitation, but the conclusion of a race.

Philippe Dudouit’s work is founded on in-depth historic, geopolitical and cartographic documentation, research and analysis. The presented project is a longterm photographic study on the sociopolitical evolution of the Sahelo-Saharan region since 2008.

Dudouit documents the new relationships that historically nomadic native inhabitants of the Sahelo-Saharan region have forged with a territory through which they can no longer pass freely, or safely. The former tourist paradise is now also off-limits to foreigners, due to a burgeoning abduction industry, making the formerly dire economic situation even worse, with large parts of the population cut off from an essential source of income.

At first glance, the rise of Islamic terrorism in the area is to blame, but a closer look reveals a reality that is much more complex: the area now faces a dangerous mixture of underdevelopment, poverty and state failure. The new constellation consists of armed Islamists, human traffickers, drugs and weapons smugglers, topped off by international businesses jockeying to win oil, gold and uranium mining rights. The lack of political vision for the area’s future is creating a scenario in which a doomed generation is growing up.

Dudouit’s work embodies hybridity, in the fusion of classic analogue large-format camera technique and the usage of digital technologies, but also in the combination of an innovative documentary photographic sensibility with the tableau-type composition of his environmental portrait.