A new series of acetone transfer prints of research activities on Svalbard in summer 2023. We used an irrigation setup to study how different properties and functions of tundra ecosystems changed under increased rainfall, such as permafrost thaw, plant growth and emergence of insects from the soil.

In doing things like that, you immediately realize that rain is hard to mimic. It tends to not fall in just one place, but everywhere at once. It also doesn’t stay where it falls. It seeps into the ground, evaporates and flows across the landscape, and then its trajectory and impact become hard to track. What was supposed to be a straightforward study with predetermined “watering regime” with exact amounts of water at exact timings, easily becomes a puzzle. Water doesn’t behave the same way in different places or at different moments and flows however the landscape tells it to. Here I tried to capture that flowy vagueness.