Before taking photographs, artist and photographer Ellen Dahl does extended research on her chosen location, then embarks on a field trip, including delving into local history and the site’s topography and climate.
“I also consider what it might look like depending on season and long-term weather forecast,” says Dahl, who moved to Australia as an adult but is originally from arctic Norway and of Sámi descent.
Dahl recently won the Murray Art Museum Albury’s $30,000 National Photography Prize for 2024, for “Four Days before Winter”, part of an ongoing project exploring the peripheral Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard – the fastest warming place on earth.
The large, suspended work presents close up details of collapsing terrain due to the melting permafrost and considers photography’s intrinsic involvement in how we see and feel about the world around us.
“I use Google a lot, and I am obsessed with weather apps – I have three different apps on my phone,” says Dahl. “Once I’m in the field, I tend to let go of my pre-conceived ideas – and try to just be open to what the site reveals to me. I consider my methodology in the field a three-way collaborative process between the site, the camera optics and the artist.”
In Svalbard she spent five days shooting on a Nikon mirrorless camera in order to experience the Arctic at its most raw and barren. “As someone who was born in the Arctic north of mainland Norway, I knew that the snow was just about to arrive, blanketing the archipelago in snow for the next eight months. Winter literally arrived the day we departed, delaying our flights as they frantically cleared the tarmac for snow.”
Dahl’s works and the works of the other finalists in the prize, including Skye Wagner, Kai Wasikowski and Sammy Hawker, are on view until 1 September 2024 at MAMA. See mamalbury.com.au
