The Change Audiographs: Listen to their stories
People from all over the Arctic have shared stories with us. Click on a photograph, then sit back and listen. Headphones are recommended.
This is a series of six photographic portraits paired with short audio stories, and each one is from a different Arctic nation. We call them audiographs, and they are also permanently installed on a ship called the National Geographic Endurance in a polar art exhibit called Change, curated by artist Zaria Forman.
In this exhibit, you will encounter each person through two different media, both of which are styled to acknowledge our presence and participation as visitors and storytellers. Our work confronts preconceptions about “faraway” places by sharing personal stories from real people while recognizing that we, the artists, also change the stories by re-telling them.
Meet the Store Norske Choir
Meet Laureli Ivanoff
Meet Sørine Peterson
Meet Zoe Elverum
Meet Erlingur Thoroddsen
Meet Larisa Vykvyragtyrgyrgyna
The foundations of our work are listening and intuition.
We traveled Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Nunavut (Canada), Alaska (U.S.A.), and Chukotka (Russia) for three years finding stories that people wanted to tell. While the result is distinctly northern, it also transcends geography by encouraging our audience to confront stereotypes and challenge notions of otherness.
The Arctic is known to many outsiders for ice, climate change, wilderness, and polar bears, but it is also home to over four million people. This is about seeing and hearing those people.
This work is a collaboration between the people featured here, journalist Jennifer Kingsley, photographer Eric Guth, and audio producer Dick Miller.