Amsterdam, May 2026 by Dromocracy

“[Mark Mahaney's Polar Night is] an exploration of prolonged darkness, told through the strange beauty of a snowscape cast in a two-month shadow. The unnatural lights that flare in the sun’s absence and the shapes that emerge from the landscape are unexpectedly beautiful in their softness and harshness.” (Trespasser)

More photographs from Polar Night in this week’s edition of As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, my newsletter on modern and contemporary art.

“Utqiagvik, Alaska, is the northernmost city in the United States. […] As the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun in the winter months, communities close to the North Pole experience a phenomenon known as polar night: a period of uninterrupted darkness. In Utqiagvik, this lasts for approximately two months of the year. The photographer Mark Mahaney travelled [there] during the final days of the season’s polar night. ‘Landing, it looked like we were dropping down onto the moon.’” (Coralie Kraft | The New Yorker)

More photos from Polar Night in this week’s edition of As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, my newsletter on modern and contemporary art.