During her October residency, childhood studies researcher Ragnhild Bjørnsen continued her ongoing work on how Longyearbyen’s unusually high turnover affects young people’s friendships, social relationships, and sense of belonging. Her research, grounded in psychological anthropology, focuses on children and youth living in highly mobile environments.

This month, Artica Svalbard is pleased to host Emma Henderson, an artist, producer, and arts educator based in the west of Scotland, as part of the Nordic Alliance of Artists’ Residencies on Climate Action (NAARCA) staff exchange programme. She joins us from Cove Park, a NAARCA partner residency located on Scotland’s west coast.

This dark season, Artica Svalbard is proud to announce the return of our Lantern Lectures series — and this year, we’re delighted to partner with Svalbard Museum to co-host the programme. Together, we’re reviving an old Arctic tradition of storytelling and community reflection, inspired by the 19th-century magic lantern lectures, which once brought people together to share knowledge through projected images, spoken word, and discussion.

This month, Artica Svalbard was pleased to host a series of fully booked creative writing workshops with French author and Artica resident Clara Arnaud. Across three evenings in Longyearbyen, participants gathered to explore new ways of storytelling rooted in the Arctic landscape, local history, and the boundaries between the human and more-than-human world.

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.

Artica Svalbard is pleased to share a new interview film featuring renowned artist Katie Paterson, created during her residency in Svalbard in 2025. The film offers a behind-the-scenes look at her recent project, True North — a photographic work developed using sunlight reflected off Arctic glaciers and satellite imagery captured from space.

Artica Svalbard and Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (NNKM) are pleased to announce the artists nominated for Artica Svalbard’s residency programme in 2026: Apichaya (Piya) Wanthiang and Nora Adwan. During their stays in Longyearbyen, both artists will develop new work that responds to Svalbard’s environment and community, with time, space, and support to research, test, and share ideas.

This month we’re pleased to welcome researcher and writer Ragnhild Bjørnsen to Longyearbyen for her October residency with Artica Svalbard. Ragnhild was nominated by the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association (NFFO) and brings a rich background in childhood studies and psychological anthropology.

Last Thursday, Artica Svalbard welcomed a full house for An Introduction to Lacto-Fermentation – a hands-on workshop led by fermentation enthusiast and historical archaeologist Anatolijs Venovcevs. Part of this year’s Smak Svalbard Festival, the event brought together over twenty participants eager to explore the microbial magic behind one of the world’s oldest food preservation methods.

We’re delighted to welcome back Clara Arnaud for her second residency with Artica Svalbard, following her initial stay in spring 2025. Clara is a French writer and winner of the Ecology Novel Prize in France. Her work—both fiction and non-fiction—explores ecological and political themes, often questioning how we inhabit and affect the living world.

Two prints by British artist Emma Stibbon RA have recently been acquired by the British Museum, London, adding to the institution’s collection of contemporary works on paper. Both works stem from Stibbon’s residency with us at Artica Svalbard, where she immersed herself in the Arctic landscape and its accelerating environmental changes.

This past weekend marked the opening of A-FI-SA. But it might not be tomorrow, the first major solo exhibition by artist and performer Maritea Dæhlin, now showing at Nordover Art Centre in Longyearbyen. Presented by Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, the exhibition traces its beginnings to Dæhlin’s 2023 residency with Artica Svalbard.

Artica Svalbard and the Queen Sonja Print Award (QSPA) are delighted to announce the artists nominated for Artica Svalbard’s residency programme in 2026: Soghra Khurasani (India) and Todd Anderson (USA). Both artists will develop new print-based work in Longyearbyen, engaging with Svalbard’s cultural and environmental context and working in Artica’s print studio. 

This year, Artica Writings returns with Beneath the Surface – Deep-Sea Mining and the Arctic. 

As Norway advances plans to explore its Arctic seabed for mineral resources, deep-sea mining has become a focal point in wider debates about environmental ethics, geopolitical power, and the contradictions of the green transition. While formal exploration has been approved, political opposition has paused further licensing—placing the issue in a state of tense uncertainty, both nationally and globally.

We are pleased to announce the artists selected for the 2026 Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) nominated residencies at Artica Svalbard.

Following an open call that received over 1,200 expressions of interest, two collaborative duos have been selected to spend time in Longyearbyen in 2026 to develop projects grounded in artistic research, experimentation, and engagement with Svalbard’s social, ecological, and political context.

Artists Malin Arnell and Mar Fjell were in residence at Artica Svalbard from June to August 2025. They were nominated for the residency by Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum as part of Artica’s ongoing programme of invited artists and researchers.

During their stay, they spent time walking, recording, and observing in and around Longyearbyen, with a particular focus on the Longyearelva river and its surrounding landscape. Their engagement with Svalbard also included several extended hikes and a kayak-and-camping trip, offering opportunities to interact with the terrain over time and from different perspectives.

We are pleased to announce that the Norwegian Association of Nonfiction Writers and Translators (NFFO) has nominated Audun Aagre and Marit Beate Kasin for residencies at Artica Svalbard in 2026. Their nonfiction projects will explore pressing questions around nature, sovereignty, and our evolving relationship with the Arctic—each bringing a distinct voice and perspective to these themes.