In residence: September - October 2025

Nastassja Simensky returns to Artica Svalbard following her 2024 residency, which was supported through a nomination by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and her independently funded residency earlier this year. Her ongoing work explores the unevenly distributed impacts of global energy regimes and extractive processes on particular geographies over time, using fieldwork as a central method.

In residence: September 2025

Janos Nieminen is a data scientist with a background in mathematics and theoretical philosophy, currently pursuing a PhD in philosophy with a focus on counterfactual reasoning. With 15 years of experience as a software developer, Nieminen bridges technical expertise with a deep philosophical inquiry into the political and symbolic dimensions of state presence in fragile environments. He is also working on a non-fiction book about Svalbard, which examines how countries like Russia and China maintain influence in the Arctic through architecture, infrastructure, and everyday routines.

In residence: August 2025 – April 2026

Ashley Middleton is an artist and researcher whose work explores the evolving relationship between the body, technology, and the environment. Working across installation, sound, video, and photography, she creates immersive experiences that integrate scientific inquiry with sensory perception. Guided by rhizomatic methodologies, embodiment practices, and a feminist phenomenological perspective, her projects investigate how attention, ritual, and intuitive knowledge shape ecological awareness.