In the winter of 2016, I crossed the Arctic Circle for the very first time and visited a sleepy town in Sweden called Kiruna. Sitting atop one of the world’s largest iron ore deposits, Kiruna was a flourishing mining town in the 20th century, but it is now sinking due to all the mining tunnels that were dug underneath it. The whole town is currently in the process of being relocated. What struck me most during my visit to Kiruna in January was that the sun barely rose above the horizon, making the world look like twilight time all day long. When the sun did approach the horizon at sunrise and sunset, an intense pink glow that I’ve never experienced before filled the sky. Curious to see more of this, I set off to Arctic towns in Norway and Finland in 2018 and 2019 to produce a growing body of work titled ‘Polar Warmth’. Below is a selection of my favourite photos from this series. —Maya Beano
