The freedom of being out on the ice seems boundless. But the ice is getting thinner, and the hunting season is coming to an end. Ice that was three feet thick now only has a depth of four inches. The ocean icefield that stretched out as far as the eye could see is now open sea.
What will existence in these parts be like if the ice disappears completely? It’s such a huge part of people’s lives here. The number of hunters decreases every year, and it is becoming increasingly hard to survive by hunting. The inhabitants are worried about their future. They envision the end of a society based on a hunting tradition that stretches back many thousands of years.

At the Felleshus of the Nordic Embassies, visitors are invited to follow Ragnar Axelsson on a visual journey into the daily lives of Inuit hunters and their sled dogs in the Greenlandic Arctic. The exhibition also offers insight into the remarkable relationships that Arctic communities have forged with the extreme environment in which they live.

For more than four decades, Ragnar Axelsson, RAX (b. 1958), has devoted his practice to photographing the people, animals, and landscapes of some of the most remote regions of the Arctic, including Iceland, Siberia, and Greenland. Working primarily in striking black-and-white, he conveys the raw, human encounter with nature at the limits of habitation, revealing the profound and enduring connections between Arctic communities and the extreme environments they inhabit.
Axelsson’s photographs have appeared in LIFE, Newsweek, Stern, GEO, National Geographic, Time, and Polka, and have been exhibited internationally. He has published seven books in multiple languages. Andlit Norðursins | The Face of the North (2016), with a foreword by Mary Ellen Mark, received the 2016 Icelandic Literary Prize for non-fiction. Among his many honours are the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (Honourable Mention), the Grand Prize of Photo de Mer, Vannes, and Iceland’s highest distinction, the Order of the Falcon (Knight’s Cross).

When: January 27th, 2026, starting at 5 pm
Where: Nordische Botschaften Felleshus / Gemeinschaftshaus, 1 Rauchstraße, 10787 Berlin

• https://www.eventbrite.de/e/arctic-heroes-verborgene-geschichten-ragnar-axelsson-rax-vernissage-tickets-1979867673508?aff=oddtdtcreator
• https://www.nordischebotschaften.org/veranstaltungen/arctic-heroes-verborgene-geschichten/