In the Arctic, average temperatures are rising due to climate change 2-3 times faster than the global average, but what does it mean for Arctic communities and nature? The photo exhibition Nanoq – Imag(in)ing Climate Change by Ilona Mettiäinen visualizes some imaginary, possible and even impossible worlds that may result from climate change.

Polar bear has become a symbol for climate change in the Arctic. As the Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears slowly lose their preferred habitats. Through displaying a polar bear figurine in different natural environments, the exhibition challenges us to think about the consequences of climate change and to ask: what if?

The purpose of the exhibition is to visualize, by the means of art, play and imagination, the possible worlds opening up because of climate change. The exhibition counts as science communications, as it visualizes some elements in Mettiäinen’s doctoral dissertation and has been photographed during her PhD journey, and as science fantasy.

The photos of the exhibition form a hybrid or artificial and imagined timeline of the impacts of climate change from icy to hot climatic conditions. At some point along the timeline, the conditions get too hot for polar bears to adapt anymore, so the photographs turn into science fiction. The last photograph speculates on the Snowball Earth hypothesis: polar bears from the Arctic meet penguins from Antarctica on same habitat, perhaps because of rogue solar geoengineering.

For the exhibition, Mettiäinen has taken photographs of a polar bear figurine during the years 2011–2016 in different parts of the Arctic such as in Greenland, Iceland, North Norway and Finnish Lapland – mostly during Mettiäinen’s PhD summer school and conference trips – and even in very different climatic conditions in e.g., India. The polar bear figurine has been photographed in the natural landscapes seen in the photos, not added afterwards by image editing software. The illusion of a life-size polar bear in the photos is created by working with perspective and composition, as well as by utilizing different sized plastic animals and different lenses and functions of a digital camera.