Svalbard

'Svalbard' came into being after a boat trip from Zeeland to Spitsbergen in 2016. In this photo book, visual artist and graphic designer Dolf Middelhoff shows us a world that may not exist for much longer. The archipelago is suffering from climate change. Glaciers are shrinking rapidly; the snow melts earlier in the year and temperatures are rising alarmingly fast. Images of the pack ice show in a disconcerting way that the ice increasingly shrinks in summer. This is a disaster for ringed seals and polar bears that need the pack ice to survive. The Global Seed Vault in Longyearbyen is also in danger. This building would withstand any kind of disaster, even a nuclear blast. What they did not foresee, however, was that the permafrost would melt so quickly, resulting in the ultimate threat to the vault.