ZNAMYA

I traveled to Murmansk, a Russian city located beyond the Arctic Circle, in 2021 and 2022. I wanted to experience the night alongside those who are immersed in the darkness of the polar night.

This is the story of Znamya which brought me to this region. In the 1990s, a team of Russian scientists used a giant space mirror to reflect sunlight back to Earth. The goal was to illuminate northern Russia during the polar night. The experiment, named Znamya , will only work for a few seconds.

In 2021, a similar project was announced by the governor of Murmansk, who promised residents that an artificial sun would be built over their city. In doing so, the governor revived the long-standing ambitions of Znamya but, just like him, these propaganda-tinged announcements seem closer to yet another utopia than to reality.

in Murmansk, this is less a feasible project than a political narrative: producing light as one creates a symbol, asserting control, and diverting attention from other realities.

As I met people along the way, I let myself be carried from home to home. In these nighttime encounters, a narrative began to emerge—one far removed from slogans, one that explored intimate ways of inhabiting the world. Here, the darkness of the polar night does not refer to a time or a period, but rather to a way of seeing. The night acts as a filter and reveals only what is essential.

This series was produced between 2021 and early 2022, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.