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Paper short abstract:

Hunting, herding, space exploration; mining a vein of iron ore; reindeer's eyes dissected to study the body adapting to light; a camera photographs the sky—every minute of every night. Elements of extraction surface throughout my work and often remind us where the earth is in relation to the sun.

Paper long abstract:

"Arctic Scandinavia, December 2014: The sky shifts into darkness—each day, eight minutes of sun are lost, until there is no sun left to lose. Still, the darkest days are those spent traveling into the earth."

In 2014-15 I began an ongoing project, working alongside scientists at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Sami reindeer herders, and a neuroscientist who studies seasonal adaptations in the eyes of Arctic reindeer. Until There Is No Sun is a body of work consisting of photographs, videos, and 19th century maps of human and celestial bodies.

Ten kilometers west of the space institute lies the town of Kiruna—a town now famous for an iron mining project so big and worthwhile it forced the migration of humans and infrastructure away from the town. I walked alongside hunters and reindeer herders, story tellers, scientists, miners, healers—all of whom were of Sami blood; I worked with an image archive from an automated camera that has photographed the night sky for over 60 years; I dissected the eyes of Arctic reindeer with a scientist who studies a structure that adapts to light and changes from summer to winter. Elements of extraction surface throughout my work, revealing relationships and dualities: of light and seeing, earth and sky, science and myth, human and more-than-human nature.

Link to images — http://www.clarebenson.com/Until-There-Is-No-Sun