Welcoming David Samuel Stern to Artica Svalbard

We’re delighted to welcome American photographer and artist David Samuel Stern to Longyearbyen as our latest resident at Artica Svalbard.

Stern is known for his deeply considered, craft-based approach to photography — a practice that explores the medium’s materiality and its relationship to portraiture, time, and place. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic, and exhibited at venues including the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and Marshall Gallery in Santa Monica.

While in Svalbard, Stern will continue his Winter Solstice Pinhole Photographs series — an ongoing exploration of light, darkness, and planetary rhythm using handmade cameras and long-exposure techniques. Arriving in mid-October, he will be working through the transition from Polar Twilight to Polar Night, capturing the fragile beauty of image-making at the edge of seasonal darkness.

David will also lead a public workshop in pinhole photography during his residency, offering a chance to learn more about this hands-on process and his unique approach.

We’re thrilled to have him here — welcome, David!