‘Where the World is Melting’ Documents Communities Amid Indelible Changes in the Arctic

A photojournalist for the Icelandic daily newspaper Morgunblaðið for 44 years, Ragnar Axelsson is attuned to capturing the moments that tell a story. Mundane activities, impending tragedies, and tender connections between people and animals all figure prominently in his work and offer a portrait of life that comes from being embedded within a community.

Axelsson’s new book, Where the World is Melting, applies this journalistic rigor and sensibility to a personal project documenting the indelible impacts of a warming planet from Greenland to Siberia. In grainy black and white, snow-covered tundras and misty shorelines strikingly glimpse an environment in flux. One image in particular reveals a cloud of steam emanating from the melting Kötlujökull glacier in Iceland.

Where the World is Melting focuses on the aging farmers, sled teams, and Indigenous populations all grappling with both drastic changes to their homelands and the traditions they’ve practiced for generations. “What does the future hold for the reindeer herders living in the tundra? Nobody really knows,” Axelsson tells Blind. “A photograph is only a small piece in the jigsaw that makes up the big picture, but sometimes it is these small pieces that open our eyes to the broader reality.”

Available through Kehrer Verlag, Where the World is Melting accompanies an exhibition of Axelsson’s photos on view through May 26, 2029, at the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar, Germany. Find more of his work on Instagram.

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