Thursday Salute to Originals: Polar Projections
Photographer Fabrice Wittner projects Innuit figures into the Northern Lights.
French craftsman, digital artist, and photographer Fabrice Wittner has a passion for people and adventure, often capturing portraits of world culture and action shots of extreme sports and travel around the globe. Wittner’s latest work keeps with the theme of capturing the incredible with experimental light painting near the North Pole.
Using carved leatherette stencils and long-exposure photography, Wittner creates and then captures projections of Innuit figures in front of the backdrop of the Aurora Borealis. The project was inspired by climate change’s impact on the native polar populations, exploring how the daily life of Innuit people may change as the world becomes warmer.
“Inuits from Greenland and the North American continent, Sames from Northern Europe, and ethnic groups from Siberia will be on the front line of global warming. As the first climate refugees, only their memory and the spirits of their ancestors will remain on their lands,” said Wittner in a statement on This is Colossal.
Many cultures believe that the Northern Lights are dancing spirits of ancient children in the sky, so “painting” Innuit-inspired figures with illumination seem fitting — symbolically bringing the spirits back to life.
This Thursday, we’re saluting Fabric Wittner’s polar projections of Innuit figures. You can view more experimental creations and incredible world photography on the artist’s website or Behance.
Sources: Fabrice Wittner, This is Colossal