Arctic: Culture and climate

British Museum

★★★★★ ‘Uplifting…mind-expanding dive into Arctic cultures’-The Guardian

★★★★★ ‘magnificent... plunges deep into the mysterious icescapes of the Arctic’ The Observer

★★★★ ‘a journey to the frozen fringes of our planet’ The Times

This new exhibition explores the extremes of living in some of the worlds harshest conditions, celebrating the resourcefulness of the people who call the Arctic home. Bringing together almost 300 artefacts, the exhibition tells the story from antiquity to 21st century

The exhibition design features an enormous sky-cloth cyclorama as a backdrop to a platform. The exhibition was designed by Opera NL to convey a sense of the Arctic and its landscape without being too literal.

The design team worked from mock-ups and experimented with different lighting to try to find the best way to evoke the polar landscape.

This resulted in a 24-minute lightscape being designed by Beam that represents the changing light over a year in the Arctic. Each month lasts two minutes with a one minute fade in-between states so that it always appears in flux.

This work was carried out in collaboration with the exhibition curator Amber Lincoln, who has spent time in the Arctic. Light is an important aspect to the Arctic landscape: while the sun is absent during the winter, the sun contributes to the Northern Lights which can be seen in the region.

The lightscape design featured in Design Week here.

A 360° virtual tour of the exhibition can be found here.