Photos and text: Leonidas Toumpanos Elena Kollatou

Polaris is a project that explores the social and environmental impact of the unprecedented opening of the Arctic region to commercial development through the utilization of land and water. The rapid environmental changes, together with technological progress and the global resource depletion make the Arctic resources reachable and commercially seductive. These new conditions bring disruptive changes in the Arctic environment that confronts political, economic and cultural shifts. This project showcases Murmansk and the surrounding area of Murmansk oblast. Murmansk is a city in the Russian Arctic and a strategic port for the establishment of the Russian economic interests in the Artic. The light of the images, which is either in dawn or dusk, connotes this ambivalent present moment of the area. in dawn or dusk, connotes this ambivalent present moment of the area. Either the beginning or the end and reflects the anticipation for the future. The city and the surrounding area covered in snow peacefully and silently waiting with tension the next era that will asses the future of the Arctic.