The topmost layers of permafrost soils go through cycles of thawing and refreezing each year, like a breathing and living thing. With permafrost soils thawing deeper and deeper each year, ground that was once continually frozen becomes exposed to this dynamic.

Graves of Dutch 17th century whalers on Svalbard slowly become subjected to this churning of the ground, exposing their contents. Purple saxifrage flowers adorn skulls and wood. The permafrost and the tundra have no notion of our linear cradle-to-grave concept of life, nor our rituals and etiquettes surrounding death.