Marta Bevacqua was 12 when she read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, captivated by his fantastical rendering of Svalbard. Her first visit there in 2016 only deepened this attachment, with the Norwegian archipelago becoming a refuge.
“I thought it would be enough getting there once,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine that the dream could become even bigger.”
Her new photobook, Signs, collates images from five separate trips to Svalbard, with indicators of humanity – road signals, buildings, a jumper – vivid against otherworldly white snowscapes. “It’s a place apart,” Bevacqua says, “where silence and space take over, where it is necessary to look and listen, where it is possible to find a sign; ours but, above all, of nature.”
Signs by Marta Bevacqua is published by Setanta Books
